A Brain Excercise From College: A Unique Take on the Discussion of God

When you're in college or even high school, you think about thus stuff a lot. You feel empowered to challenge things and build your own philosphical framework and if you are like me you were determnined to make it solid, a worldview so logically consistent that consistency would be defined by it. Unlike a lot of college kids who in exploring logic and philosophy found humanism, I actually went and found God. Go figure!
Being that that is seriously a very unique and unusual experience in the field of philosophy, I decide to post it, if anything for prosterity. So we get into the Faith Argument. This was my full circle transition from existentialism back to theism. And I would like to point out it is only that part. Further developements were made but this one is where the hinge or differentiating thought lies between me and the majority of my peers' experinces.

This is a very simple version, just the bulletpoints. Perhaps once I find the full article I wrote back in college I'll post it.

1. All things can be doubted and in such doubt, all proof or evidence for any understanding is itself disproved until we lose certainty of even the self. For an explanation, see Descartes.

2. Reduced to doubting even existence, we are forced to make a decision. Have faith that we exist, or deny we exist. It is actually impossible to deny you exist since every cognitive thought, every firing neuron, every conscious observable moment forcibly makes that step of faith for you. You cannot refuse to accept existence, you have accepted it already by observing, by being. Congratulations. Feel like doubting that? So did Descartes, feel away, but that's all you'll be doing is feeling, not believing.

3. Likewise you cannot deny that you think, because you do. See, you just did it right there. Try to stop yourself, can't do it can you? You're programmed to think, just like you're programmed to exists, that leap of faith in cognitive thought is made for you. You have to accept that 2+2=4. Why? Because. You just did. Your entire though process is built upon mathematical logic, to doubt it is to be in a state of self denial. You can say 2+2=3 but it doesn't and you know it. Your just playing that guy who says he loves classical music to seem more sophisticated, you know he doesn't.

4. Following suite you cannot deny your senses. You can try, but the moment you interact with any force of nature upon your conscience and perception, you were forced to have faith that your senses were correct. You are programmed to have faith in them and trust them. So is it the Matrix? You don't know but you sure as heck accept what you percieve. You can't undo that. Not even Neo knew of the Matrix until he was shown it.

5. We are programmed and actively do have faith in standards. Look, a chair is a chair and not a mockingbird, and you know that. You can't unknow it either. You can't just change what happened to you, so, in effect, it was forced on you. You percieve that the universe has structure. There's you, your thoughts, and what interacts with you. You forcibly accept that structure, the standard that separates a turkey leg from a tennis racket.

5. In having faith in the structure, that all things are defined. You also immediately have faith that something defined them. Lets get real, force acts on force and you now have faith that it takes something over all other things to give them definition. A definition means it was defined. It's scope of existence was set in motion and something decided that a wooden block shall exist where it does and no farther. You have faith that there being a design, there's a designer and totally take that for granted.

6. That definer is certainly not you, you've established that. You can't make a cloud become a pizza no matter how hard you try. So it's something beyond you. You also have faith it's intelligent and if you think about it deeply enough, even interested in those definitions. Breaking reality up into anti-matter and matter takes intent, something only a cognitive being has.

7. You take for granted that there's only One. Just like Highlander. You see, whatever defines everything defined has to go before it, it has to precede it in existence or power. Thus, if you have two equal designers, they are logically inconsistent, much like the two sides of your personality, and invariably must go down to one, even if there are two first. There must be in the end only one.

8. You then take for granted that it is infinite. While we're talking about the concept of time and space (not even having to go into other dimensions) we see a very obvious thing. No set of limited structures can go on for infinity. It's impossible by definition, by pure mathematical understanding, the same mathematical understanding you totally have faith in anyway so why live in self denial now? Even if space and time are limited, what limits them? And is that limited too? Where does it end? With the thing that's unlimited, that's where.

9. That concept your brain subconsciously takes for granted every day, every decision, every observable moment, fits the concept of God. A totally different discussion is seeing what the charcter of this God is and Who it is. Yes, that can be deciphered too. Whether you agree or not I hope this has been a fun brain excercise. Think deep, not more.