1. The Thought Experiment
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Let me take you to a THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
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In a room, there is a box.
You are not allowed to open the box nor touch it, or go near it.
Now I will ask, what is inside the box?
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In the thought experiment, we cannot know what is inside the box.
It is because we cannot examine it directly.
But there are things that we can consider that the box doesn't contain.
I am sure that the box doesn't contain the following:
A square triangle
Fire water
A bed made of sleep
A chair made of air, etc.
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These things are illogical. There's no such thing as "bed made of sleep".
We are pretty sure that these illogical things doesn't exist in our reality.
If it doesn't exist in our reality, that means it cannot exist inside the box.
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Lets say, your roommate said that there is a METAL SPOON inside the box.
That is a CLAIM, and a positive claim needs a PROOF. But, since, you or your roommate cannot open the box, how can you get enough proof to PROVE or DISPROVE that there is a metal spoon inside the box?
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2. Personal Anecdotes
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I am intrigued by the thought experiment.
How do we know God anyway?
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I only knew God because somebody has told me. My family, friends, priests, pastors, and all the people around me, they told me about God.
I was told that there is God.
What if nobody told me that there is a God? Would I be able to know that there is?
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I was a Catholic, who practices beliefs generally everyday. Goes to church, maybe twice a month. Give thanks to God before I could eat, I could sleep and even wake up.
I faced a dilemma when I want to know God when I was 13 years old.
Who is God? What is He like? Is He the Creator?
I've asked myself too many times. This time, I turned to Bible but I started to recognize that there are other religions as well. I was overwhelmed.
There is One God, two gods, three gods, many gods.
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I said to my self, what the heck? There are too many God to choose from.
I also asked myself, "If these people believes that their God is real and my God is not real and I also thought the same way as they thought, then what if I'm worshiping the wrong God?"
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From that day, I took a step back and started to look at God the different way.
I thought to myself, "These people claims to know that God is like this or like that, how did they know God? These gods are different from my God. How did they come up with the entirely different concept of God?"
After a long thought, I realized there's something wrong.
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3. The Connection of the Thought Experiment to God
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In connection to the thought experiment, these "God Believers" are pretty much like the Roommate in the thought experiment. Except, they are so many. You have a Muslim Roommate, Hindu Roommate, Catholic Roommate.
And all of them claims that there is a God. The problem is, these three belief system can't agree to some extent. There may be common grounds of these beliefs, but there are drastically different and sometimes opposite for what others believe.
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They are arguing like who is the real god, Allah? God [of the Bible], Brahma? But they all agree that there is a God.
The problem is, How did they know that there is a god? How did they know that it is Allah, or God, or Brahma?
These Gods have different characteristics and yet they all agree that that there is a God.
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As a skeptic, I am intrigued by these differences.
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They are arguing like what kind of spoon is in the box, is it a metal spoon? wooden spoon? brass spoon? But they all agree that there is a spoon in it.
The problem is, how did they know that it is the spoon that is inside the box? How did they know that it is a metal, wooden or brass spoon?
These spoons have different characteristics and yet they all agree that that there is a spoon.
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I found a problem with that, how did they even know, they cannot even agree. Many have tried to describe what is god like but they end up arguing with other theistic beliefs.
This proves that this God is hereby inaccessible. We cannot access the information about God or what is he like.
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We can only speculate what is inside the box.
We cannot prove nor disprove because it is inaccessible.
But since illogical things cannot exist, if an attribute about God has proven illogical, then it cannot exist.
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4. Addendum
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Since there are claims about God, I am bound to examine them to find illogical attributes and characteristics about this God. Because, I am sure, an illogical thing cannot exist.
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But, Since, I cannot examine God directly. I cannot assure whether He exist or doesn't exist. I an stuck in this dilemma. I cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God. And I take no position in doing so.
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A repost
-AP17