Do you believe in God?
I may have done once, but not any more. The fact is that none of the supposed "proofs" stands up to scrutiny and it all comes down to "faith" - whatever that is.
My belief is that people who claim to believe in God, and to have had direct personal experiences that confirm his existence to them, have had a mental episode that is easily explained by psychology. This will create the illusion of reality but actually have no presence outside their own mind.John, what do you believe happens to people when they die? Do you think that is the end of our existence?
I've often stated the rules of the physical world do not apply to the spiritual world.But how can you know that? You can't show us that the spiritual world even exists. It's a belief right now, nothing more.
I did a story once with scientific ghost hunters. One of the members had a Ph.D. in engineering. Another one was a college physics teacher. They tried to use "scientific methods" in their ghost hunting efforts. They recorded things and experienced things science could not explain. Now, during this story I asked a science professor at an Ivy league school if he would take a look at what was found by these ghost hunters. He would get a mention in the magazine, which had a rather large circulation. He refused. When I said why, he told me it could not benefit society and only hurt it. This left me with the impression many scientists may be uncomfortable with trying to work on discovering the spiritual world. It seems to scare some of them. So, people of science appear to be more comfortable focusing their efforts on the physical world.
Again, I ask, what happens when we die? Is that the end of it? Do we go on to another life in another world?"They recorded things and experienced things science could not explain. "
And there begins the questioning and searching process. With something they can't explain - what was it? How can I be sure, and what other tests can I run to verify my hypothesis is correct?. Most (all?) paranormal "researchers" I've seen, unfortunately, simply assign the label "ghost" (or one it's variants) to what they don't understand, which is a very good reason that your professor was not happy being in a paranormal magazine research article.
When your searchers have proven that what they detected and experienced was due to a disembodied intelligence then they can report they found a new life form. Not the remains of a once-living organism, just a life form that has never been seen before. Until then all they can report is that they are ignorant of possible causes and request help from others to find out what it was.Part of the scientific method is to try an disprove what you've discovered using all known methods. After this is done, what is left is a mystery.
A scientific view of the super natural
People have had many experiences over the years that are unexplained. Many of them get the label “super natural” or “paranormal” But are they? Or are they natural? Let’s see if we can work this out.
Let’s take a look at what we know, and see if we can make a model from it. It’s long been known that we can record sound and images. In fact, through the evolution of sound recording we’ve discovered dozens of ways to record and play back sound and images. We can even store information in what we call radio waves. And with the internet and cell phones there’s information all around us. But we need something to decode the information and play it for us. Our brains thankfully can’t do that on their own.
And the material we can record on is also almost limitless. Records, tapes, CDs, etc. In other words: metals, plastics , and just about anything.
Several years ago experiments were done and it was found we could record on stone.
Humans have a function, along with most other things. We gather, process, store, and pass on information. Most living things do. We and everything is made of atoms/energy. That energy doesn’t die when we do, it most likely dissipates and goes on to join other structures, as the energy of other former nonliving structures do.. There is nothing to suggest it can stay together after leaving the structure it belonged to. And no such large unit of energy has been seen leaving a dead body at one time, and such experiments have been done. So let’s assume for a moment there is no soul.
So the question is, does that energy carry bit of information about what it was? If so, being it was recorded by a living thing, could that information be read by a human mind? If so, it would explain everything about ghosts, spirits, déjà vous, strange sounds, etc.
When a person has a traumatic experience, can their emotions be written in to the very walls of a room, and perhaps be read/played back by a person with the right kind of brain? That is to say, that works on the same frequency as the recording, or something like that.
When you eat something, you never know what it’s been part of. Could déjà vous be information we’ve eaten, or breathed in at some point, and then it gets triggered by seeing a place for the first time? It would feel exactly like you had been there before, because something you ingested had been there.
In the 1960s in Berkley they did an experiment. At least that’s the story we heard when I was 17. They had the idea that by thinking together they could create an entity in a room. They gave it a name and a back story and talked to it as if it was real. Apparently participant started feeling as if it was real. They also started feeling strange. It is said they moved a table a good distance by telling their entity to do it. I’ve never been able to verify the story so I can’t vouch for it. But knowing Berkeley and the 60s it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
But what I can do is relay my own experience.
Shortly after hearing about all this, my roommate and I decided to try it. We worked on it for a few days but got bored with it after nothing happened. A week later we had a couple friends come over. Everything was fine until we moved into the room we had done the experiment in. The girl that was there started to cry, saying she felt a great weight on her and great depression. She didn’t know why, and she only started feeling that way when she entered the room. We felt nothing, but her boyfriend said he felt strange, but didn’t have nearly the reaction his girlfriend had. We never told anyone about our experiment, and we didn’t actually believe we had created anything.
But never the less, when people came over and sat in that room, many of them went through various degrees of distress. But we never felt a thing. Was it all coincidence? Could be.
As it happens, life wasn’t great for me at the time. We’d moved 3000 miles from home for a job that never panned out. We couldn’t get a job to save our lives, so when they told us the list had been destroyed and we’d probably have to wait months to get the job we came for, I’d had enough and went home.
It was the 70s and friends lived in communes. We rented a house together. 13 of us. We paid 30 dollars a month rent and utilities. I made my room in the basement and got 5 jobs in a week, finally deciding on one.
A few days went by, and one day I came home from work only to find a good friend afraid to go into the basement. Apparently he had gone down to do laundry. But as he descended the stairs he felt a weight bearing down on him. He felt fear and depression he couldn’t understand. He dropped his hamper and ran back upstairs. I knew what it was. I had somehow brought it with me. Or had I?
I realized that I’d been very depressed for a long time. Not just because of the job issue, but also a former relationship issue, and I generally didn’t feel good about myself and wanted to change. Did I create this thing? I went to the basement and started talking to it, telling it I wanted it gone. I had created it, I had to erase it. After several hours I felt it was gone. I convinced my friend to go down and he no longer felt anything. And it never came back.
After years of thinking about and wondering what had actually happened, it occurred to me that I may have written my emotions into the room. It wasn’t an entity at all, just a recording that certain others could play back. Or it was all co-incidents and imagination. I can’t rule that out.
In the end I can’t say with 100 percent certainty what happened. But I do know what I experienced and what others experienced. And the most rational answer I have, other than coincidence mixed with imagination, is that which I’ve laid out in this text.
If it’s true, and it’s certainly possible, then the supernatural is just natural recordings of traumatic events. How often have you heard people say just walking into a certain room gives them the creeps, but they don’t know why? Or that being in the same room with a depressed person brings them down?
I’ve read that so called poltergeist activity has been linked to troubled teens in the household, in most cases. True? I have no idea. But it would fit the model.
And again, this is just a model that tries to link the fact that information can be recorded on anything, and played back with the right device; and so called paranormal experience.
And if true, it means the supernatural is actually perfectly natural, not always just coincidence and imagination. Though I have no doubt it’s that too at times, as well as stray EM fields and other natural conditions..
Research, research, research. Perhaps someday we’ll know.
Most people who believe in the spiritual world, unlike fundamentalists who believe on faith alone, hold the belief from personal experience so they can't show you. It is real to us, not just a belief. Once a person experiences it, he/she can never go back to just faith alone.
I have zero doubt those people had amazing spiritual experiences. I've had lots of them too. What is up for debate is: were they actually what people think they are, or are they all in your mind?
So as sure as you are, you can't be sure, and therefore it's a belief, not personal knowledge.
From my own experiences I would have to say they were pretty much all in my head. Reason being, I trained myself to have any experience I want to have, including living Alice in wonderland for a few minuets, as real at the time as any experience in day to day life.. Hence why it makes all such experiences suspect.
I don't believe in the Christian "God," the Jehovah of the Old Testament, a psychotic one minute and an allegedly loving deity the next. A real Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Why bother to pray to someone who may dump you on your ass for something you didn't realize offended him. No, I think he is just a legend, folklore or somebody's bad dream.
But I do believe in an other world, multidimensional existence. Whether it is headed by a creator or many levels of creators, or gods, I don't know for sure. But I do believe in guardian angels and spirits who watch over us.
I was lying paralyzed on my back in a bus wreck in 2006 when I sent out a mental plea for help to whomever in the universe would listen. I was fully awake and not in shock as a medic later said. I was wearing a light blazer with long sleeves. I received a response, feathery light strokes on my face and the same light touches on my arms under the sleeves. A voice in my head distinctly said, "don't worry, we won't leave you." It wasn't me talking to myself. Someone in the universe was comforting me. Remember, I wasn't in shock or unconscious. The entities stayed with me until the ambulance arrived and transported a couple of us to the hospital. The next morning I found that my paralysis was only temporary.
I took that as proof that there were other entities in the universe. I had attended metaphysical school in the 1970s and was told a lot of stuff that I took to be, well, out of this world. While attending school, I had two experiences with what I took as a malevolent entity who was trying to possess me. The loving entities in the accident were my evidence that there is something good out there although I won't say that it was actually a god who was with me...just its lieutenants.My mother had an a sleep paralysis experience with a dark "demon" holding her down. She explained how she felt it was her mind making up a reason for why she felt she was awake but could not move. This is just to show how such experiences can be interpreted so much differently. I'm not stating either is right or wrong.
I do think that the scientific method has not been sufficiently applied to the realm of the metaphysical. This seems mainly as it's difficult for scientists to be taken seriously when studying such matters. Personally, I think studies should be judged solely on their individual merits and scientists, as a whole, or biased against studies of the metaphysical realm, which is not very scientific. There is more, even right in front of our eyes, that we cannot see.There are uncountable items right in front of our eyes that we cannot see, ranging from stars and galaxies to amoebas and bacteria.
But until science can either detect those things (microscopes, telescopes, whatever) or their undeniable results that we CAN detect, there is no study to be done.
Nevertheless, science does try sometimes. It has tried to find a soul. It has debunked scammers talking to the dead (that's how science works; test and debunk a claim) every time it has tried. I'm unaware of any scientist that was made a laughingstock in such efforts, although certainly they have been when making claims of the supernatural that they fail to support or prove.Of course things we cannot see are not identifiable until we detect them!?! It's detecting them that is part of science...telescopes and microscopes are only tools that make detection of some type of phenomena possible. Scientists discovered those detection methods as they must do in order to uncover further mysteries.
I watched a documentary something like "science of the soul' recently...according to this show, science found some things that maybe could perhaps point to a soul..but, of course, nothing that amounts to a theory.
" I'm unaware of any scientist that was made a laughingstock in such efforts, although certainly they have been when making claims of the supernatural that they fail to support or prove."
In science departments, although my experience is mainly in physical science, people wouldn't necessarily hear of anyone being "made a laughingstock." Rather, their research would simply be steered in a different direction that is more acceptable to the mainstream scientific community. Nobody ever hears of a laughingstock unless they were, at one time, a respected member of the scientific community.
I stick by my statement that the scientific community should be more open to research that may cross into what some may consider the "spiritual" realm. After all, there are often times physical links to that spiritual realm that, when revealed, make that realm seem less mystical. And, no one knows what the next detection method may be eg. microscope until it's discovered.
Mendel and Pasteur were considered mystical lunatics by some in the scientific community.
There was no study to be done on germs UNTIL Pastuer discovered them..the microscope was a tool, not the discoverer.
The science of LSD effects on brains was treated as spiritual mumbo jumbo by mainstream science until recently.Hard Sun, I believe science and spirituality are coming closer together, and that some day they will merge. Especially after some scientists have spiritual episodes that awaken them to the fact that everything doesn't have to have a logical explanation. There are many things beyond the understanding of the lower mind.
I would be willing to believe your mother when she talks about her experience.Yes. Science and spirituality coming together, at least at certain points, is my main point here.
Some LSD trips when I was much much younger reflected strongly upon me that the mind does not see all that it is even physically capable of at this point, without the help of introducing a foreign chemical, or maybe some intense meditation or some such. Some thoughts are simply real, and that can be felt.Only had one chemical drug experience
called orange sunshine acid just once. It turn my life from an athelite to an artist and the real centre and marriage of my life.Oh yes. From my experience, not many people can do a moderately intense psychedelic/hallucinogen and not come out changed. I did some orange sunshine blotter acid. It was one of the more prevalent paper designs when/where I was growing up. The new research on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics is spot on and much needed. Of course, like anything, too much, used for the wrong purposes, etc. can lead to not so good repercussions. But, this shouldn't stop us from recognizing good effects of such drugs. After all, people have recognized such for thousands of years. Yet, we imprison people for doing so now.
I take it as granted when someone tells me about their experiences. What is always up for debate is where those experiences came from and their interpretation of that experience
I spent my teens and early twenties studying Eastern mysticism and Buddhism. I reached every level/experience the gurus told me were possible to reach. I can even still leave my body almost at will. I reached states of bliss, just knowing, feeling a connection to all.
And I did it all by mind alone. No metaphysics.. I even lived in Tolkien's middle Earth for almost 12 hours. The brain is amazing. You can have any experience you want. You just need to train it.
And there's a massive difference between real science and spirituality. Sure, scientist are coming up with all kinds of theories, or more appropriately hypothesis. The difference is, in science, before you can say your hypothesis is right it has to be tested to prove itself. A lot of current science can't be tested. Some, like many worlds, may never be testable. Therefore, they are just a guess. They are an interpretation of real data. But interpretations aren't facts, until they are. If they can't be tested they add zero to our actual collective knowledge base.
Everything does have a logical explanation, even if we don't know what it is. .If we don't know what it is we may be able to determine that explanation through science...at some point. Just because something seems mystical now, it doesn't mean it has no explanation. This is where science and spirituality can meet. All of current science can be tested in some way. That doesn't stop some scientists from floating out a hypothesis that they don't know how to test. But, that does not make science and thus is not science.
"The more I study science, the more I believe in God!"
-Albert EinsteinEven Richard Dawkins see a similar demi God as Einstein. Just not a personal God.
Somehow I doubt that the man that learned to make tremendous predictions based on natural laws believed in the god of today: an omnipotent, omniscient ET outside of time and from another universe that commonly violates the natural laws Einstein worked to hard to prove.
On the other hand, such a statement made in recognition of almost total ignorance of those same natural laws seems reasonable.Sorry, that's not a real quote. There are a lot of false quotes attributed to Albert.
Is the question you are asking: do you believe in one or more deities?
If not, then it would be helpful for you to define your terms.Nope, there is no God.
As you do not need a God theory any more to explain the world.
One used to believe in a God to explain thunder. Now we know it's not Wodan throwing spears. One used to explain how the sun rose and set by Apollo pulling a chariot across the heavens.
One used to believe that human kind was created and only had 1 man and 1 woman as a starting point.
All these God theories have become myths. The God theory was an early scientific theory that's now replaced by much better theories.No. I don't believe in god. But I also don't believe there is no god. No one knows. No one can know. So it's useless to believe either way.
Lots of reasons not to think the Christian god is the one that exists even should a god of some sort exist. And as far as I'm concerned any conscious being that created this would have to be sick sadistic and cruel beyond belief to have created a world where all things suffer pain, hunger, fear, diseases and where everything must kill something else to live.
From nature without intent it's just the way it is. But if this was intended, god is more Satan than benevolent father figure.
So in a real sense I hope there is no ego maniacal tyrant creator out there.
The alternative is a god that can only do things one way. Not almighty or all anything else. Then it would be nice to know why it decided to or had to create this.
Some have speculated that god is messed up and out of balance and creation was a way to solve it's problems. Of course anything responsible for creating/developing this could be defined as god. So if it is non-intention-ed nature/cause and effect that created it, the Pantheists could be right. Nature/the totality itself is god.
Do I believe it's true? No. But I think it has a reasonable probability.If there is God, it's Love and Religion is nature, this makes sense to me. Since I base my life on good sense, I will wait untill something else comes along. Something that I can understand with my heart in order to change my mind.
Not sure I understand how you can believe that seeing how the world is. Where's natures/gods love in a 4 year old with cancer?
Sure, there is love too, but not, it seems, coming from nature itself as a whole. It's an element to strive for, for sure. But it's not universal.
We're a virus on the butt end of the universe. It facilitates our being, but doesn't care about or for us one way or the other.
As for the heart leading the mind... Sorry, but the heart is emotion. It's often wrong. And the only way to find out is mind. Emotions change as we learn. Mine lie to me all the time, which is why I can't trust them when it comes to knowing the truth. And I'm far happier knowing and being fine with the fact that I don't know, rather than believing something because it feels good.The heart is far more than a muscle or an emotional. I lead my life with my heart, shortly followed by my mind. Love is the glue of universe, all earthling love. Love keeps babies alive or elder living longer. What's God than a second handme down imagination dominanted by emotions .
Individualism is the pathway to enlightenment as we are what we think. All energy fire, water air and earth is the life source of bio-organism received from the stars like star dust spirits. Nature has laws I can understand, God has too many laws and condition for love I will never understand. More people are killed in the name of God, than for any other reason.
Where imagination is the living agent of all human perception with both intent and effort. There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds, the quality flows by the gift of fantasy conceives in images from objective reality. Imagination asks desired questions, it creates and grows with exercise. Anyone is enough of an artist to draw from their imagination as for it’s the basic health of every man. Concept like God, issue lower form of imagination, and imagination is a poor substitute for experience. Few people have the imagination for reality and logic and reason can die off quickly. Your knowledge has limits but your imagination dose not. Reason respects differences, and imagination has a perceptible likeness of things. It’s an act not of reason but an intuition, Imagination is the eye of the soul and the voice of the daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. When he dares to go beyond his wildest dreams, he can imagine everything.
I can prove most everything I know was once imagined, it’s created in beauty, justice, and happiness. It’s the main source of value in the new economy and the supreme master of art as of life. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more expansive your universe becomes. If you forget your dreams of your universe, your Universe will cease to exist. When your will and the imagination are in conflict, it is the imagination that always wins.Imagination is wonderful, I agree. We use it best to ask questions like in science. We imagine and then test to see if what we imagined is true or not. But imagination doesn't create truth. Something is true or not. Believing it or not believing it doesn't change anything.
I would say that emotions are our subconscious telling us something is right or wrong according to it’s conditioning. But It may be right or wrong about that.. Therefore it’s good to fact check it through conscious deliberation.
The brain has two sides, the right and left. Right is mostly subconscious, and the left is what we call consciousness. It’s the side that identifies as “I”.
A ball is flying toward your face. You move, catch it, or stand there like a dear in headlights and get hit in the face. The person who catches it has probably played ball before. It’s training. The person who gets hit was consciously confused and thinking. Thinking is too slow.
If you learn a new skill you need to think about it at first. For a guitar you have to think about finger position, timing, learn here the notes are etc. But the more you learn and practice, the less you need to think about those things. By time you’re stage ready, thinking about it can make you second guess yourself, and you make mistakes.
The skill has literally become part of who you are. It feels natural. As you say: intuitive. It’s on auto response, which is how the subconscious works.
You don’t choose your emotions, you just get them. You had feelings about playing the guitar, learning to drive a car or bike etc all through the learning process, and they changed through the process.
So learning/experience educates your subconscious auto response/intuition. All animals work this way. But humans have an extra feature. We have a conscious component that can deliberate. Why? Due directly to complex language. The conscious mind deliberates in language. When you think, you think in words. Try thinking without them. You can get limited results by thinking in symbols, but that’s what words are on steroids. A single word can hold a thousand complex concepts, like the word “religion.”
So consciousness is an emergent tool, developed by the evolution of complex language. It’s there to educate and alter auto response/intuition/instinct, and consequently your emotions.
Again, we don’t choose our emotions, and worse, we don’t choose our likes and dislikes, which is mostly what emotions represent. And whatever we do, we do to appease/resolve those likes and dislikes, some of which are biological needs and genetic predispositions. Others are derived from culture/environment set against our biology and genetics.
The subconscious will throw up answers automatically, but they are often wrong. A test was done with hundreds of math and physics students. It’s a very simple problem, but 90 plus percent got it wrong. It goes like this:
“Answer the first thing that comes to mind.
You go to the store to buy a bat and ball. The total price is: 1.10. The bat by itself costs exactly one dollar more than the ball. How much is the ball.?
Not only did most of them get the wrong answer, most of them gave the same wrong answer. Try it on your friends. Most people will say: ten cents. That's intuition tells us, but it's wrong. Close, but wrong.
The point is, unless you fact check your first thought/heart, you have a good chance of being wrong unless you’re trained in that kind of problem. And that first thought comes from the subconscious.
Also, as a point of interest, neuroscience has discovered that the subconscious actually knows what you’re going to do seconds before your conscious side is informed about it. Of course it thinks it’s the part that made the choice. When you catch the ball, don’t you congratulate yourself on how good you are? And rightly so. You’re not just your consciousness. You're the whole package. I think we agree on that at least.We can agree on alot of things.
Science and religion is like a branch on the tree of life, it is not the whole tree. Truth is beauty and imagination does create it's own truth as everything I have ever achieved in life was all once imagined and believing is not as strong.
I think feeling is a better word than emotions. A good EQ is more important than a good IQ. When I feel it's right or wrong I am connected to my moral subconscious and the collective ethical consciousness My heart brain is most empowerment, my gut brain is my survival mode and my mind brain is the ego that backs it all up for conscious deliberation.
We start learning with our minds then magic takes over from heart and gut brains of our subconscious to take it very intuitive level. Practice of 10,000 hour is most common thread to greatness. After 80,000 hours of my artist works, you can imagine how good I am. Visual come before words in your mind, we learn faster with visualization.
As an artist I learn more from honest mistakes and accidents. I won more sculptor championship than anyone yet also made more mistakes than anyone. Arts and culture has influenced mankind more than Religion. Good thing because I think Religion has done more harm than good.
"So learning/experience educates your subconscious auto response/intuition."
Slarty, you have it backwards. You think that the subconscious is dependent on the lower mind. Any metaphysical person knows that the subconscious is above the physical level mind. Even psychology teaches that: the id (mind), ego (subconscious), and superego (superconscious). At least it was taught that way when I took psychology in college.
Even your example of writing down the first thing that comes to mind does not mean that it came from the "mind educated subconscious" (your viewpoint). It just means that it is the first thing that pops into your brain from your own level of experience.
Again, to use a Harry Potter term, which is so convenient, you muggles just don't understand. Someday when you awaken....
But even metaphysically it doesn't work that way. The subconscious knows a lot more than it allows a person to draw upon when the subconscious views that as a trivial matter, such as a pop quiz. If even awakened people could get answers from their subconscious minds on everything, we would be the most brilliant people in the world. Einstein, Tesla, et al would have nothing on us when it comes to smarts. We, even you, draw upon our subconscious to give us guidance like don't shoplift that blouse, or pop a warning to us that a train is approaching the next crossing...things that really matter to our lives or morals. Our subconscious doesn't give a hoot about the answer to question 25.The word God is just a word. Others words like love and heart can be confusing to many.
Although they know love when they feel it. A subconscious could be the closest explaintion to a Godlike behavior. Even a prayer or a wish from a birthday candle can act more like a self hypnostizes towards what you really want, Godlike cast into the universe.
I only get into trouble when I don't follow the heart long-term.On the contrary, I'm not saying the subconscious is the lower mind. I'm saying it's in charge, fully aware, but unable to think through complex concepts. Humans think consciousness is in charge. The part that self identifies as "I". But it's a tool, part of the system. Not the entire system or the most important bit.
But I also don't believe the subconscious is soul. I don't think there's anything metaphysical going on.
And yes, the subconscious is guiding the system not to shoplift, because it's been taught that's not a good idea for many reasons. It's become an auto response. But as a young child you have no such conditioning. A kid or animal sees something and takes it. Only having gotten in trouble for it teaches us its not a good idea. And this gets reinforced over time.
So your auto response has to be educated and changes by experience, Morality isn't inherently fully formed in the subconscious.Morality is whatever you think is right or a limited thinking group, thinks is Right.
Ethics is like business across the board like Lack of ethics of stealing and murder.And yet you said: "I think feeling is a better word than emotions. A good EQ is more important than a good IQ. When I feel it's right or wrong I am connected to my moral subconscious and the collective ethical consciousness "
My point is your moral subconscious isn't inherently moral. It has to learn And no, morality isn't just what someone believes is moral. Morality comes from cause and effect. Something I taught my kids: Rain shit on someone eases head, and you'll get shit on yours. If you don't want trouble, don't cause it for others. What comes around, goes around.
Even many religious morals exists as ways to solve human conflict. Not that they always do.
If you are caring, you're more likely to be cared about. If you live by the sword, you'r likely to die by it. You reap what you sow.
Again, cause and effect.
Your subconscious can't give what it hasn't learned.
The collective ethical consciousness is the same thing. It's about how you want to be treated. How most of us want to be treated: I'll buy from you, but don't rip me off. We all like genuinely ethical behavior from companies and individuals. And it all comes down to a simple formula. Simpler than do unto others. It's: do no intentional; harm.
It's not a commandment, it's a method for a better life for all, including yourself.10 commandment are a set of Judeo-Christian Christian morals. Most of them are meaningless, like thou Shall love no other God before me. Or rest on Sunday and ect......
I can simplified these 10 morals down to two 2 ethics rules
1. Do not harm.
2. Be honest.
That I can always be centre and balanced rather than be a constant victom or hipocrite to millions of different morals.
Or can't keep up to too many ancient outdated or ridiculous made up laws. That do more harm than good.
Most Presidents were former lawyers, too many people desire them, not me.It is well-documented that the world's major religions preceding Judeo-Christianity, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Kabbalists, etc. had their versions of the 10 Commandments before they were "given" to the Hebrews.
"given" to the Hebrews? That would be news to most historians, Miz B.
For example, "Hinduism does not originate in a single founder, a single book or a single point in time. It contains many different beliefs, philosophies and viewpoints, not always consistent with each other." In other words.... more or less, anything goes. It is nothing like the ten commandments, nor do they have any version of ten commandments, nor did the Hebrews borrow from them in any way, shape or form.
Zoroaster borrowed from the religion of the Jewish captives in Babylon, primarily, the book of Isaiah, which existed before Zoroaster was born.
Kabbalah came into popularity in the 12th century, supposedly borrowed from the Torah, a Hebrew book. It is a Gnostic mystical religion. It was not "given" to the Hebrews. It attracted elitists then and now.
Your statement is incorrect.
In your view, the earth is still flat, and Egyptian slaves built the pyramids by rolling 2 or 3 ton stones 150 miles to the site.
The NT bible led most Europeans to think the world was flat.
I've Broken 25 world records of different materials of sculpture. Many marble material pits move that weight around. I rolled tiny houses around without a machine.Yes, but tiny houses are made to be rolled around, at least most of them are. I don't see a lot of difference between them and mobile homes.
Never underestimate the ingenuity, or the manpower, of our ancient ancestors. I haven't seen anyone try to roll a block from the pyramids up the ramp they used, but I have seen a group of people make a rough copy of the giant statues on Easter Island and walk it across the countryside. Tons and tons of statue, being walked with ropes, tilting it slightly one way then the other, the same way I walked a tall, heavy bookshelf across my floor the other day.
It didn't take a spaceship full of ET's and it didn't take a god. Just muscle and ingenuity.Right. And I have seen many videos of people using different methods for moving large rocks. Who's to say what technology has been lost, particularly before people wrote things down?
How many people came up with a boat before boats became common knowledge? Or a wheel? How many times were they invented and then lost? Who knows?
And humans of different kinds have existed for millions of years before Sapiens. Some even had larger brains, like Erectus. We don't know.
So you're absolutely right: No need to go looking for ET just yet.
I don't know - I heard there is a big gathering at Area 51 coming up soon...
Right, and the army warned them. There's no way they'll get in, no matter how many gather. Their more likely to get shot or arrested.
And I'm not saying there are no aliens. Who knows? Did they ever come here? I don't know. All I'm saying is that due to distances and the fact that even if someone reliable knows, they aren't saying, it's better to look in to the possibility of past advanced earth cultures. Their archaeology would be pretty deep by now but not impossible to find if we knew where to look. Probably under water too.
But again, its all speculation right now. If aliens turn out to be the answer I'll be fine with that too.
Maybe a million, to see what no body has prove before.
Tax $ at work.
No. the earth is roundish. I'm certain of that, but as to who built the pyramids of Egypt or when is up for debate. There is a good chance our civilization isn't the first advanced civilization to have existed on the planet. And water erosion on the sphinx suggest it is at least 12000 years old, not 4000.
But I hardly see how your comment is related to what I said.
Yes, but not as much as the church told me to
I believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because they have made themselves known to me. To all skeptics I ask, have you ever reached out to Him? How can you say He is not real if you never asked Him to reveal Himself.
I did. I even wanted to be a priest when I was young. but I learned from years of experience that you can have any spiritual experience you want, you merely have to train the mind to have them.
You also get them naturally without deliberate training, or easiest of all through drugs. And even with an electromagnetic field
The killer is, you can also train your mind to visit fantasy worlds like Alice in wonder land, or what ever, with a feeling of ultra realism to it.
That makes all spiritual experiences suspect.
Not a personal monotheism God.
It makes no sense to have one world Religion or one and only God. Who nobody is capable of giving any evidence or sound logic towards. I am, who I think, I am. Is about the closest to God that I can imagine. Don't bow down to bullies.Why does it "make no sense" to have only one God?
As there is no evidence supporting such a thing, I do not. Now if a god introduced itself to the world, and provided proof that it was a god (whatever that might mean) it would be a different story.
So you don't even know what "proof" would look like?
If your God comes for his second coming with red dragons and lava rivers from hell. I promise to bow down my entire soul to be save because I am a survivor first.!
Then find out who is behind the fake.It meant to be open ended for who think there is only one personal God, who is the be all and end all.
Wasn't sure if you we're, or not.I do believe in one personal God though.
I don't have a religion
No - I referred to just what a "god" is. If a god:
Did it create the universe?
Can if violate natural laws?
Does it, or did it used to, live in another universe?
Must it agree with our (current) version of morality?
Or is just an advanced version of the magicians we see on TV? Maybe one with more advanced science and tools?How can you believe in a god if you can't even define what the word means? I'm confused here - if you believe in a god, then what are you believing in?
I have experienced God's presence. I wish to learn more about God. He may be uncomprehendable by humans.
What factors make whatever you experienced (whether simple coincidence, ET's, your own subconscious or just the machinations of another person) a god? That was the question - what defines a god as opposed to other, natural events/life forms/natural law/etc.
Ultimate moral authority,and possible creator of the universe
Then I am a god, for I am the ultimate moral authority (as defined by me) and possibly created the universe (you cannot know).
Moral authority is given, not built in. If people do not give that authority then it does not exist. And everything, every animal, every person is a "possible" creator, at least until we manage to go back and watch as it happened.It is built in. We can tell that from our conscience. This is a gift from God.
"This is a gift from God."
And therein lies our biggest difference. You are happy to make this claim without having any evidence at all that it is true - at most you can only claim ignorance and assume it is a god because you don't know how else it might have happened.
But morality "built in" by a god? No. If that were true morals would not change over the years or centuries and societies the world over would have very similar moral codes, but they DO change and are NOT the same. Morals are learned, from the culture around us, and not built into our genes. For the most part, anyway - a few seem to promote reproduction, which might be genetic and a result of a million years of evolution.
Wilderness, now you are getting into the spiritualist concept of god or gods. Check it out if you haven't already. You may find it interesting.
He then will have millions of God's to choose to get it absolutely right.
Lol.
If god created the universe who created god? Another god?
Who knows. I can only say what I've learned from personal experience.
I have no doubt you had an personal experience.
I only think that the explanation you give to the experience is the wrong one.
I experienced thunder, but my explanation is not that God is fighting with lightning spears.Yeah...Personal experience also told us the world was flat..how we perceive personal experiences is something often proved wrong
@peterstreep and hardsun: I think I understand what LTR is saying. I also understand what you are saying, too. However, muggles can't understand what kind of experiences open-minded spiritual people are having. I don't think LTR is talking about a "Biblical Christian --the earth is flat" experience." Y'all think we are crazy, but we really live in another world from you. Peace and love to you.
Just because I lack a belief in gods due to lack of evidence doesn't mean I'm not open-minded or not spiritual. In fact, my open-mindedness is part of what prevents me from being locked into a theistic doctrine. Peace and love to you as well.
I'm no moral beacon, but goodness is innate in those that are not purely sociopathic. It also helps to be raised with some sort of moral compass I certainly don't get all my moral from the bible, as I'm certain the vast majority of Christians don't or we'd all be in trouble or non-existent. No religion corners the market on "good."
Besides, isn't it semantics as the religious "build" their own good by interpreting their sacred texts in the way that each individual sees fit?
Glad to know that. I've admired your stance on a lot of things in the forums. I didn't think you had a closed mind. Just making sure.
"However, muggles can't understand what kind of experiences open-minded spiritual people are having."
"spiritual people" are not by definition open minded...And muggles are on by definition closed minded. I think you have to rephrase this..
I'm an artist by profession, and work daily with things that I do not understand and work a lot by instinct/intuition. I do not explain these intuitive workings by saying that God told me to paint the left corner of the painting black....
And not only artist work by intuition, most of us do.
Everybody has experiences that are out of the daily routine. These experiences are true. Only the explanation is debatable.
So if somebody says I had an experience and it came from God I highly doubt it. As the God theory is used to explain the world and many wonders. only to be replaced by more sensible explanations.
So is intuition not mysterious if you analyse it. but based upon who you are, what you learned in life and memories etc.
A person who was taught to believe in God will explain that a out of the ordinary experience will be given by God. A person who has more or less the same experience and is an Atheist will have a different explanation. The experience is there but it will not proof one thing that a God exists.
Perhaps you should have stated which god.
Cool. There's more than one? I had no idea you were polytheist.
Did you know a house cat will jump sky high scared, if you show them a cucumber on the floor. The cat thinks it's a snake, because in their DNA from their ancestral cats who experienced real snakes in the wild. Except your ancestral snake actually talked your ancestors, and yet today your evil snake is hidden in all kinds of places.
Looks like you found your black cat and your talking snake, I have not.I am neither a cat or snake. I don't think you know what ancestor worship is. when I pray I look to the sky and ask grandma or Grandpa I need some strength can you lend me some. My grandparents were not fake things and I keep their Spirit alive and well. ancestor veneration is one of the first forms of religion.now your analogy and disrespect for my deceased relatives and ideas is what hate and anger is made of.. for people like you it doesn't really matter if you believe in any kind of God. It's people that are going to tell you to go to hell.
No disrespect toward your concept of God or ideas for whatever works. I don't know you and understanding where your ancestral God comes from. I do worship the sun, man, woman and child within a family. So that kind of world is my family. The grandparents concept is not too far off, just less importance then immediate family or adopted family.
I have no hate or anger since I was 8 years old. You make your own personal hell on earth, let your God do the judging. I think everyone is God, If my dream is true. It would be nearly impossible to be dishonest or harmful to each other as everyone is God. If my dreams die, I may lose my mind.
What a weird notion. My cat has seen many things that look much more like snakes - toy snakes for example! - and never flinched a muscle! I have had cats all my life and never seen this happen.
Maybe all your cats ancestors were house cats or never experienced a snake.
There are many unexplained things that are pass down in our DNA from our ancestors, that can't be explained. I could be confused with pass lives within my DNA senses. Many cats have this weird fear of snakes. Many cats Nationwide attracked their TV screen, when this orange monster cat appear called Trump. Probably because he call cats lazy and useless or their owners disliked Trump.
Even our happiness can be 35% pass down from our most recent ancestors, most of your own happiness is made up from you. The most important history of all, is to study your family tree and their backgrounds.I've seen this phenomenon (and blast you for making me watch cat videos).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXv44YL_GioLol. Many of those cats don't look like they get to go outside.
Why would they fear for their lives as if it just resembles a snake. Yet, they have likely never experienced a snake? I think we and other species can be hypnotized or tramatize these memories into the next generation DNA also.Now that is a funny video. Poor things. My cats today are housecats, but 25 years ago I let the cats I had then go outside. We lived near a creek and our yard was quite "snakey". Several times in the 14 years we lived there, one particular cat would come in with a swollen jaw from a snake bite. Apparently he wouldn't leave the snakes alone. We finally found the snake den and cleaned it out.
I'll have to try this little trick with my housecats, but I don't think it will phase them. When we adopted our little black boy at age 4 mos., the shelter said that he was a street cat. We got the female at age 6 mos., and I believe she was always a housecat. They are both superb mousers.
What's a "house cat"? A cat is a cat - it goes in and out of the house as it desires. If you are saying that dislike of snakes is acquired genetically, then any learned behavior will not be carried down the generations - or are you suggesting that kittens are taught this fear at their mother's knee?
A house cat is not a outside cat. House cats peek out windows. Look down on the outsiders. The outsiders kill for a living. Don't mix the two
I think this must be an American concept. Our cat has a cat-flap and comes and goes as he chooses. He gets fed by us and has no need to kill to eat.
Could be an American thing, but we have so many dangers to cats, traffic in town, neighbors who put out poison, or in our neighborhood in the county, coyotes and vicious dogs. Statistics show that most American cats allowed to roam have a three-year or less lifespan.
If a humans family tree carries too many alcoholics in their family branches. The next generation DNA is more likely to have more alcoholics too.
Or could be your family tree be filled with wealthy financial members and you happen to inheritance and richer than most. Is it coincidence or dose it co-in-cides with your prior generation DNA. Since humans are animals too, cats as a manmal have ancestral DNA memories also.
The Pope stated dogs go to heaven. Then why not cats?. Or were cats in a rowboat tagged along Noah's ark? Good for a cat haters book story anyways.
Going back as far as Jesus or Noah times so ancient ancestors would have very little DNA resemblance to us today. Just a few notes, fairytales and hearsays to make a book for the many Wizards of OZ''s. They make stuff up to be popular like Trump chosen by God, good thing the Pope disagrees.Mother cats teaching their kittens how to be scary cats. Lol. Now jump high and paws in the air.
Everything produces by nature. I believe that nature is superpower God.
Yes , islam first pillar is that to believe on Allah and his Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Allah is always with you. A strong believe on Allah definitely leads to the success.And I firmly believe in Allah . When I need help in my life, no one is there for me. Then I prayed to Allah 3 times deeply ( Allah please help me) So he helped me where I would never have thought.And do remember. Time does not remain same. So stay positive ☺️.
Any proof of people that believe in Allah have ABC pillar of life and a successful life as they pray three time a day. Do Allah sheep even have more of a successful life than a Christian or Jew sheep?
Is individualism evil or can a person be possibliblly stronger without a God?
God is God. No one can explain it. If someone says God speaks to him why should you doubt it only because you feel different? You don't have to believe it. Yet you can't change it. The day you decide to meet God, you will know he exists; and some others will doubt your claim. It's not their fault, just like it's not yours. Someone can help you to know God but your relationship with God becomes explainable only by you. Those who relate with God can explain intuition, but those who live by intuition don't know anything about God. Let God be God whether or not you think he exist.
If I tell you I have 20 million dollars. Would you believe me? Without proof?
Would you say:
You don't have to believe that Peter Streep has 20 million dollars, Yet you can't change it.
Some may doubt my claim of having 20 million dollars as I don't act like a millionaire. But you have to believe me that I have 20 million dollars.
Those who relate with me know by intuition that I have 20 million dollars.
They trust me.The problem is this. In the 1970s Doctor Persinger did some tests with an EM pen. When he put it on people's heads they had all kinds of ultra real spiritual experiences. Some saw god, some devils, some angels, some saw Buddha, etc.,
He refined his technique and built the god helmet. Look it up.
He can manipulate your brain so you experience talking to god. And the experience is ultra real. It seems, though, that what you experience is what you already believe in.
Plus, one guy said he had the most amazing sex he ever had in his life, and several people had intimate conversations with living family members as well as people they met in the waiting room and the doctor himself. None of which could be said to have actually happened outside the person's mind, leaving all the experiences in the same category.
And again, I've had more spiritual experiences than most. I had spirits hovering over my bed debating what to do with me, kill me, or give me a chance to better myself. Jesus once told me to return to my body. It wasn't my time to die. I've met the Buddha. I reached states where I just knew everything .
Problem is, you just feel like you know everything. You don't come out of it with any real new knowledge. That was what started me doubting.
Then there was levitation. I was told I could do it. But even though I had enough training, I couldn't do it. Neither could my teacher. And all the gurus that claimed to be able to do it were faking it, or thought they were levitating but weren't. Oh, but I do often levitate at will in my dreams.
That started me seeing that all I had experienced was mind. And to prove it to myself, I trained myself to go to Middle Earth during a meditation, and it worked, and I loved it and I never wanted to come back. But I did.
So then I knew I could have any experience I wanted by way of my brain, not the supernatural or metaphysical. I also started studying mind.
What did god say to Moses when he protested and told him he had the wrong guy? God got miffed and said something like: You don't have to know what to say. Who do thinks puts the words in your mouth? And he goes on.
The point is, I just read a comment from someone in this debate who's an artist and said they relied on intuition much of the time. Where do our great ideas spring from? Early man thought they came from elsewhere.
If they invented bread, the god's guided their hand. They couldn't possibly have come with it on their own. Where would the knowledge come from? Hence, one reason we started believing in gods.
any writer, artist, or musician, will tell you, it's like the character, the painting, the music created itself,
Of course, now we know a little more about the subconscious. We can come up with novel ideas though training and experience and experiment. It's all in the subconscious. It takes even seemingly unrelated knowledge and combines it to form new ideas or concepts.
I have a lot of experience trouble shooting. And when I come to something I can't quit find an answer for, I actively forget about it. Actively meaning I stuff it in my subconscious. Later on, without fail, I get an answer that seems to pop into my head. Usually it's a good one.
And that's where you go when you meditate too. The subconscious.
So again, talking to god is highly suspect. You can have the most ultra real experience, and it can be, and usually is, all you.When I build a beautiful sandsculpture in a fairground or mall. Often someone comes up from behind me and says, God gave you that gift. I once response with my father gave my some guidance and mainly I work very hard for these skills.
Often we understand estimate the power of our subconscious and our self hypnostizes. Or we allow the power to be like politics and religion to walk away with too much credit for own energy and soul.In a very real sense there's nothing but energy. However, I don't share your belief in souls. All I know for sure is, we have a brain. It, in total is us, as far as we know.
Souls, like gods, are speculation that is not based on actual evidence. We assume a soul would be energy, as you say, but no one has ever seen a block of energy leaving a body after death, and yes, experiments have been done. So far, no evidence for souls.
But what you say is partially true about the conscious mind. We allow consciousness to take far too much credit for who and what we are.
In fact, the brain was developed due to more and more cells grouping together as a single organism. It's purpose was the survival of the cells. But like bad politicians/government, the brain thinks it now the most important part, and the body is there to serve it., It's even decided it can beat death by creating gods and souls.
I believe in Thor, and Hercules. My Gods are better than yours, Naaaaa.....
Belief is based on proof. You are what you believe you are. I believe that there is a Higher Power.
No Believe is not based on proof. science is based on proof.
Believe is nothing more then speculation based upon superstition.Yes a highly organized superstition with a world domination of Emotions.
Belief can have faith or blind faith like in Religion. For something so grand for me to never understand would cause me great doubt. With such great doubt I would over focus on the problems unable to solve or get closer to. Being unable to solve the ID of God and his path in life would turn me into a hypocrite or unhappy not able to solve many problems. So much of my happiness is how I solve problems gracefully. I am the best leader in the world for my own enlighten path. I feel and experience great achievements throughout life. I mastering life for most part. Why would I ruin life by believing in a God, exspeically with religions hypocritical rap sheet history.
My last four Christian girlfriend dumped me in a row, because I could not be saved. It is a mouse trap for me and they can keep their obsessive King of Cheese whiz. They can keep their white or black Jesus with blue eyes. Or their Mohammad flying a white horse to heaven. Give me working love and nature of reality's to guide me. For I know how to make God laugh, ....tell him my plans.To me it's a much more profound thought that we are all made out of stardust (the poetry that lays within the knowledge of scientific facts..)
Then to believe in a super being who created men and the universe - without explaining what created this God in the first place.Yes, the dots connect much more solid to think of evolution is the source coming from the big bang and the Sun a smaller star.
They say if you see God, he is so bright, you will burn up. The (sun) or son of God is probably another wrong translation.They say a lot of things about God
Religion is just as evolutionary as other social behaviour.
The concept of God is an Idea that changes over time.The god of the Bible is not omnipotent as he cannot defeat an army with iron chariots. Why is he given two omnipotent attributes, "almighty" and "omnipotent"? Iron is always in every one blood and throughout outer space as far as we can find and prove. Chariots of fire is one way to heaven as iron Particals could be one source of energy connecting everything. light ohas dual nature one is wave and another is partical.. how it can be possible to have dual nature
spaced out man! ;-)
You must have read Erich von Däniken...The Gods Were Astronauts:.....I did a poll here on what was more probable to exist.
Sasquatch beat out Yahweh, and Aliens were three times more probable. Two Cristians did not know what a Yahweh was. Lol
Chances of Aliens is very high, even the Pope says Aliens are our Savior.
I still stand, it to be proven to me. Because no alien creatures had visited earth with solid evidence. With one exception of a trarigrad species that has proven it can live in space for some time, possibly from Mars.
Some interesting replies on this topic.
I don't think humans will ever be able to use science to identify God. This deals with the spiritual realm and we are in a physical realm. The rules of this world do not apply to the spiritual world. So, science can't be used.
Now, when anyone tells me they don't believe in God, the first question I have is "What do you think happens to you when you die?" This is an eventually for all of us. Is it over and we no longer exist? I like to think we all have a purpose for being here.
According to my belief, we are all souls wearing a human body and and doing the job we were sent here to do. Then again, I also believe humans have free will. So, you get to serve your purpose here or not, it's your choice.
I did a story about scientific ghost hunters one. Spent time with them on a few of their "investigations." One of the ghost hunters had a Ph.D. in Engineering, another taught high school science. None of them belonged or professed any religion. I can tell you after being with them, there are things in this world that science can't explain. These are their words.
When I think of atheists, I think of my time in the military. There were times we faced some dicey situations and at times it looked like we may not make it. More than once I saw people who professed to be hardcore atheists cry out for God's help. So, I think it's easy to be an atheist when things are easy.
I've discussed this with Hindus, Muslims, Jews and others. It's interesting how you can find tiny bits of similar beliefs in all of them.I don't understand how most people prepare their whole life to be with their personal God. They call out to God for fear of the unknowns .
Human only have 1% knowledge about the total mass of the earth. Spiritual is the 99% unknown until it is known and manifest into our ego self. Religion is based on fear, loose poems, and fairytales of ancient times. Spiritual is less about repeated lies and pass odd facts. It's more about the learning process of the present and future in order to master life. Imagination is more important than the pass or even present knowledge. As every achievement in life was all once imagined. Too many copycat Gods hypnotize the masses for their control of others. Hypnotized yourself for your own desires and Destiny. Take control, be the king of your own domain.I wonder if you really would like to live for ever. I know I wouldn't. I expect that when I die it'll be over. The energy that is me will dissipate and join other structures. It will exist forever, in one form or another, but not all as one entity.
And what purpose could there possibly be? Only purpose you decide on. A gods purpose for you is it's purpose, not yours unless you accept it as such. And for that you'd have to know what it is.
I figure, if someone has a purpose for me, god or otherwise, that's fine. But it's not my purpose.
And meaning. What kind of meaning? Living for eternity singing god's praises? No thanks. Sounds boring as hell.
I'd like to live until I know everything. But what's after that? Nothing left to strive for. Time to pack it all in.
And really, most people don't know what to do with the life they have. Live for eternity? Why? For eternal boredom?
Don't get me wrong, I've had a great life. But I'll be very content to just not wake up one morning. If I wake up dead, I'll have to re-evaluate. But I'm not sure I'd be happy about it.
We'll see. But I need no purpose nor meaning for my existence, and I honestly see no value added if there were a god.
I believe there is one God; father God, creator, giver of life.
I have no other explanation for the tides, the Earth's rotation, the sunrise, the developmental stages of life in the womb.....
I feel his presence in my life. It's a peace that passes all understanding.A belief is weaker than a goal or dream in knowledge and intentions.
Love/work is more powerful and peaceful than all the Gods conflicts, wars, copycat and mistranslations. How can anyone understand ,when there is a million Gods to choose from?.
Love is when I'm stronger together with things or person than being alone.
God has too many conditions for his love. God presence is in your mind not using all your physical senses of the knowing. The source of all problems is in the mind. Trust your gut brain for survival. Go beyond led with
my heart brain, that keeps me out of trouble. Following God's always leads to all kinds of hypocritical troubles.Closet definition I can find. Is when 2 people or thing is stronger together than apart. With little acts of kindness. Some people's ultimate love can be God, straight or same sex. Or a Man, women or child. Some wife had a dog as their ultimate love, maybe her husband is a worse dog than the other one. I ultimately love my daughter and my work. Can't master life without loving your work.
Can you see it or do you just know it's there?
I feel it somewhere in the subconscious, or heart brain, you may confuse as God. That 95% white matter of the brain unknown
Knowing love is mainly through time and the practice of love. Like a Rose, not overnight, be careful of its thorns.We all get confused at times, I just wouldn't want a lifetime full of the BS confusion.
I'm always open, if I met your God. If I asked him questions like I ask the Universe in my mind. Would I get straight forward answers? or more BS like Christian claiming to know him.
Got a few questions, Yahweh.
Why can't you save Satan, he believes in you?
Can't you organize your superstition & emotions?
Show yourself to atheist, they have great doubts?
Why dose your books and religion have the worst hypocritics and worst criminals rap sheet in the history of mankind?.
My last four Christian girlfriends, dumped me because I couldn't be saved. I am screwed, now?
Why do you look like the God from South Park?
If your all mighty, why could you not defeat the iron chariots, is it because we have iron in our blood and throughout the Universe?.
Will you laugh, ....if I tell you my life plans?
In time and patience I always find answers. For my happiness depends on it. I will never be able to understand God for answers will not come."if I met your God"
Since death is an eventually for all of us...what do YOU think happens when you die? If you don't believe in God, what do you believe happens when you die? It is a reality of life we must all face. What do you think happened to all those who have gone before you?Everyone dies but not everyone lives. What happens?. Likely we get reincarnated into something else.
My poem.
We have pushed Death away from Life, the dying away from the living - all in order to impose the illusion of control on the uncertainty of change. We have lost touch with the natural world and with our place in it as mortal animals. We have forgotten "how to die."
For every beast, dragon, war and Empire that raises and falls. Their dead bodies will be replace by green grass and among the grass, Grass Hoppers will be making love
Make love love not war
Do your good and peace before the world is over
Make love not War
We can work it out , I never had no doubt
Do the right thing, cause we are always fighting
For heaven and hell is on earth can be back biting
Make love not War! isn't that more exciting
People have often wondered,what have I done or not done if I die. I have no Regrets for the pass only what I do not do in the future. Have no fear of death because I know how to live, just don't want to be there when it happens.
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives. The terror in not in the big bang, its only in the anticipation of it.I think yours is a fair and honest response.
You and I think differently on the subject, but I respect your honesty.
One day we'll all know who was right. Until then, I think we can agree it's best to make an effort to live each day to the fullest.
It's part of you. Of course you know its there, unlike a god.
If you want the real answer I'll give it to you. Humans either make things part of who they are, or they reject them.
When you learn a new skill, you have to think about it. The better you get, the less you have to think about it. Riding a bike, driving a car, playing music, what ever. Eventually the bike, the car, what ever, becomes a part of who you are. An extension of self.
Love is the same mechanism. You want to make that person part of who you are. We hear it in the language: She's my better half. She's part of me.
But before you get there you have to get to know each other. It's not just you trying to make someone part of you, Unlike skills, the other person is trying to do the same thing, which is where conflicts can come in.
And, as I said, once you have accomplished your goal, it's on auto. Which is where the idea of your partner not trying as hard comes from.
That's also why you can't love others if you hate yourself.
And love for a child is obvious. It is already literally part of you. Hence we talk about blood coming first.
Now, I could talk about chemicals and hormones etc, but that's attraction and sex, not love, although the best way to get someone to want to love you is though sex.
So love is the act and desire to make someone part of who you are.What aspect of it do you want to know about?
You were explaining love to abwilliams. I just figured you wanted to cover all love.
It's all the same mechanism. But, your love of chocolate, or any food, is also genetic and biological. You don't choose your likes or dislikes, you just have them. Some people love it, others don't. And your gut bacteria has a lot o do with it too. The bad bacteria gives cravings for simple sugars. Good bacteria is happier with complex sugars and gives cravings for better healthier foods in general.
Yes, your gut bacteria is an important part of who you are, Good bacteria make hormones your body doesn't otherwise make, and yes, they talk to your brain. through the neurons in your gut.
Your gut, in fact, is an extension of the brain through a layer of neurons that control the functions of the gut. Some scientists have called the second brain, though it probably evolved first.
The brain needs sugar to work properly, so sugar isn't all bad. And dark chocolate itself is actually good for you. It's the additives and processing that makes milk chocolate not so good for you.
But again, if something is already part of your makeup, it's easy to love.Some say chocolate is a substitute for sex.
Amen. The brain, gut bacteria, hormones, neurons...thank you God for these amazing and complex bodies of ours.
I am amazed at the mind so powerful that it can create such intricately detailed smoke and mirrors that it can fool the most devout empiricist, materialist, atheist and devoted disciples of physicalism.
Do you know or remember times trying to explain God to an unbeliever? They always say that your experience is invalid. They have no knowledge and your personal experience cannot be tested...
We all have fallen and scraped our knees. The unbeliever and believer have a shared consensus of that experience.
Experience is experience is experience. Is it true or false based on a consensus?
The only proof of anything is that proof itself is also a rationalization of the mind or minds.You have faith your god exists. Not experience. Faith makes you feel like you know something you can't know. But it doesn't make it true. I don't know if there's a god or not and I can't know. Neither do you, nor can you.
Yeah, praise the lord for making the universe so complex. And don’t you just love the fact that everything gets to suffer? Wow, 4 year old kids die of cancer. That’s so great isn’t it? You gotta love that everything has to suffer disease, pain,; both mental and physical, terror, depression, fear, hunger, cold and heat etc. And what a stroke of genius to make everything kill something so they can continue living! Praise the Lard! Your satan couldn’t have thought of setting things up so diabolically. Hence why the Gnostics thought your god is the evil one.
Logically, If any conscious being did this, it’s cruel beyond belief. Particularly if it could have done it any way he wanted to. The alternative is, it could only create this. In that case it’s still cruel for having decided to do it anyway. Even if this is a simulation and god is a 14 year old living in his parents basement with a super computer. He’s a cruel little kid.
Yours even had its supposed son murdered so it could forgive original sin. What a guy. Original sin… Yeah. Put a poison tree and a snake in the play pen and forbid your newborns from touching it. Then when they do what you 9bviously wanted them to do, you curse them and all their descendants, even though they had nothing to do with it. What a merciful Great Cod he is, eh?
The only way he might be forgiven is if he’s a messed up god that created this from self in order to work out its imbalance and turmoil through it’s creation.
I hope all this is natural, rather than planned. At least then all this suffering is just the way it is, because there’s no intent behind it, just natural processes and cause and effect. To what end? Who knows? But for the religious minded, the totality is in turmoil and out of balance, and we’re part of it. So perhaps the totality is attempting to find perfection? For someone who needs meaning or purpose, which I don’t, what higher purpose could there be?
Metaphorically one could then say we weren’t the imperfect creation of a supposedly perfect god, rather we and the totality are imperfection reaching for perfection, or in essence creating the god state, though I dare say it’s not likely we or the totality will ever achieve the goal.
So you’ll never hear me say: thank dog the world is the way it is, and it amazes me that anyone would."Suffer, disease, cancer, pain, hunger, depression, fear, heat/cold, up/down/sideways, poison tree and snakes etc."
I admire your optimistic and positive point of view, I really do. Me? I am a pessimist. Way too much good in the world, for my taste. Get rid of more of that I say. Too much love and good in the world, they took it for granted.Oh sure, there's a lot of good and love in the world, and if that's what we want more of, which many do, including me, it's up to us to make the world better, despite the way god set it up. No one else will.
Too little, too late for that imo. I thought they were going to have to redo all the maps and globes to account for a hurricane parked over the Bahamas (which I am sincerely surprised it still exists).
It is admirable that you have a desire to choose to do that and the freedom to do so. It seems contradictory a control freak god, that sets us up to lose, as you suggest would allow that. Sounds like freewill on your part, if I believed in such. Like you are free to rebel against your maltheist view of God.It does not seem objective to me if I were to believe in an Evil Pantheism. A MalPantheist.
Kinda like having it both ways, argument-wise. One minute there is no moral question, the next its just immoral. Very inconsistent.“Too little, too late for that imo”
Never too late until it’s game over. And no reason not to keep trying till the end.
“It is admirable that you have a desire to choose to do that and the freedom to do so. It seems contradictory a control freak god, that sets us up to lose, as you suggest would allow that.”
Really? You blatantly ignore the way the world actually is? Now that’s a contradiction. If a god did it, it’s responsible for it. As for free will, There is nowhere in any bible that says god gave it to us. And the garden story shows that if anything we stole it, and god got pissed.
But regardless of fantasy stories, in fact it’s a useless meaningless phrase. Yes, you do what you like. And you reject what you don’t like. Sounds free, right?
But you don’t choose your likes and dislikes, you just have them. You don’t choose your emotions, you just have them. So you’re serving likes and dislikes and emotions you don’t choose to have. How free is that?
We have lots of will. It’s unique dynamic will, and we can learn and change our feelings about things, and our will. But it can be influenced by everything, including a cup of coffee. So no. We don’t have “free” will. That’s obvious from the facts. The only free part might be that it isn’t directly controlled by anyone other than you. Including your god.
“Like you are free to rebel against your maltheist view of God.”
No I’m not. The facts are self evident. If a god did this it’s an evil piece of crap. If your god exists, from the bible we can see it’s a cruel tyrant egomaniac piece of crap. Were we talking about any fictional or real character in any book other than god, you’d probably be the first to call it out for what it is. But you aren’t free to see it as it is. You can’t call out god. You have too much at stake.
Christianity is the most selfish religion in the world. You worship an evil tyrant because you want something from it: everlasting life. And if you don’t kiss it’s ass you live forever anyway suffering in hell. Yeah, that’s some loving god. Love me, worship me, or go to hell. If that’s not a tyrant egomaniac what is? Trump wants the same thing. No wonder Christians flock to him. He’s obviously the second coming, right? If your god exists I want nothing from it except to be left alone to disappear in to nothing. It can kill me now if it likes.
So no, I’m not free to give up my dislike for your god or religion. The fact’s won’t let me. Now, if a god showed up and explained it all to us personally, I’d listen to what it had to say. But I’m hardly going to take your word or anyone’s word on the subject seriously since you can’t know anything about god. And all you’re doing is repeating a bronze age myth as if its fact.
You’re free to believe it and make excuses for it. But I can’t buy it because it makes no sense without proof a god exists. And unless it shows up, you will never actually know it exists regardless of how you feel about it. Unless you know, you don’t know. Faith is not knowledge, though it feels like it.
And remember, I know because I was religious at one time and I had to face all these realities myself. Now I don’t believe anything. I only count facts as knowledge. You don’t need to believe in them. Everything else is a guess, including god. A guess isn’t a fact no matter how educated. Why would I invest anything in a guess?
I don’t know if there is a god or not. So belief that there is one is a guess. Believing there isn’t one is also a guess. I can’t know either way so why invest belief in either guess? For me, there would be no point. But I certainly hope the bible god doesn’t exist, and I don’t think it’s very likely that it does.
So lack of belief is not belief of lack. Belief is concept you hold as true or not true. Lack of belief is not a concept. I lack something you have, and I don’t want it unless it can be proven true. It’s useless to me otherwise.
I’ve dropped many beliefs over the years. Christianity, Buddhism, and materialism to name a few. I even helped create Scientific Pantheism in the 1990s and left shortly after it was up and running. A religion for atheists who want the community and spiritual aspects of religion without the dogma or gods, based in science.
No, I’m not a materialist. Quantum field theory has shown that there are no material particals. Matter is created by bundled waves of energy that act like solid objects but aren’t. So everything we consider material, is made of non-material energy. The Buddhists were right after all. I always thought they were. But, until it was shown to be true by science it wasn’t a probable fact.. So I accept it conditionally and wait for new information on the subject. So how can I say I’m a materialist? So now I’m just a seeker again. I don’t care what the truth is. I just want to know what it is. And to do that I can’t allow myself to be fooled again, as I’ve been so often by wishful thinking and speculation when I was young. It’s fact, or it isn’t. no matter how I feel about it.
I think that answered a few of your last posts.No answers at all in that. Mostly you present strawmen and wail against them lol.
1. ) Now or before you were some kind of pantheist and the universe was, what it was. No intentions. But if someone mentions God then suddenly the universe it totally immoral.
That is inconsistent.
2.) You say you seek the truth. As long as the truth is not God.
That is inconsistent.If you’re going to accuse me of contradictions why don’t you explain where the contradictions are and why they are contradictions? You don’t seem to be able to give a logical rebuttal, you just keep repeating
contradiction/inconsistent without explaining why you think, were there a god, why is the world so messed up and cruel. And why wouldn’t it be this god’s fault? Convince me.
As for my having helped create Scientific Pantheism, how is that contradictory? What does it contradict? Nothing. And you said before that Pantheism was false. How would you know? It’s a model that a lot of people relate to on their own. I heard it so often. No one converts to Pantheism. Most people told us it was their belief before they knew there was a name for it. It’s an awe and wonder and love for the totality and nature. And they were happy to discover so many like minded people.
In Pantheism there is nothing but god, as defined as that which created all this. But it’s not a conscious separate being, it’s the nature of nature. I take it one step farther. It’s the nature of energy, which is what we call nature.
Do I believe it? No. I think it’s the best answer given what we actually know. But I invest no faith in it and would drop it in a second if proves false. So no contradiction.
And when I say I don’t care what the truth is I mean it. If it’s your god I’d accept that. But I wouldn’t necessarily like it. But again, my or your personal sentiments are irrelevant. It’s true or not whether we like it or not, and our beliefs mean nothing. I want to know for a fact no matter what it turns out to be.
But unlike Pantheism you have zero evidence for your guess/model. Zero. We know nature exists. You can know nothing about your god should it exist. So to say you know it exists and what it wants is a lie. You need to add some logic to your thinking. Admit to yourself you can’t know. Then keep believing anyway. At least you’d be being honest with yourself as well as others.
One can believe in God without believing in religion. I wrote an article about it, but alas cannot share. As a side note, Google hated it.
I just went to your profile page to look it up, but there are only six articles. Where did it go?
Anyway, I agree with you. I believe in a creator and gave up religions many years ago to seek on my own because Jehovah, the "God" of my childhood simply did not make sense. I have an article on my journey, but as you say, we can't promote them here.Can you create a Creator without a religious guild book?
Most of my articles are now on my own site. I'll spare you the gory details. And the site isn't listed on my profile either.
Imagination is the closest I can ever get to God, I am a Creator too. I just don't claim the whole Universe just my own universe circle.
The same predictable responses from the atheists. They claim they do not believe in God, but half will actually publicly entertain the notion that they themselves are gods and the other half are angry with God and judge him.
Do you have an actual rebuttal?
Physicalism and zany homemade made-up scientificky pantheism is false. Materialism, Physicalism what have you, is redundant and is contrary to occams razor.
All you have is perception.
I have faith and experience.
The sunset that I witnessed last night, each and every breath that I draw, watching my three young grandchildren enter different stages of their young lives; one is learning to walk, one is inquisitive and reminds me so much of my middle son when he was young. The oldest, she requires a detailed explanation of every single new word she hears, she does not accept it until she fully understands it.
I am so sorry that you don’t see these as experiences, made possible...through God.
Every atheist seems to work so hard and exert so much energy to disprove God or explain him away to others and to themselves. It must be exhausting.I"m an agnostic.
I find it sooooo exhausting watching between extreme opposites fighting over the Universe. It's bully Yahweh of over 2.5 billion hypnotized sheep dogs and sheep. Conflicting with science extremists. When the vast majority of the truer answers is in the middle."I am so sorry that you don’t see these as experiences, made possible...through God."
The problem is not that you have these experiences, it is that you attribute them to a god...without ever knowing if there is a god.
What is exhausting is not trying to disprove God (any god), but trying to explain that you cannot attribute experiences, events or things to a god simply because you are ignorant of actual causes and expect anyone else to believe it. The reasoning process is faulty - "the sunset was so beautiful it just had to be from my God" - but the faithful never seem able to comprehend that ignorance does not show a god. Neither does complexity, no matter how much it is claimed to do so.A search for truth rather than fantasy and wishful thinking is a life time challenge, but its liberating. You have wonderful experiences, I'm sure, but you can't know your god actually exists. You have faith it does. That's not knowing with certainty.
I have no issue with people saying they believe a god exists. I only have issue with someone who says they know for a fact god exists. They are lying to themselves and to others.
I am not fighting with anyone, just expressing my views on this particular subject. Have a wonderful day.
If my ultimate love was God. I would be experienced to take on all challengers to lay out all my experiences with God and evidence to prove.
I don’t have Polaroid proof, but my heart, mind and soul knows, soooo....you must find your own way. Have a wonderful day Slarty.
Polaroid proof is impossible anyways
We can only know a concept of a Polaroid.What is proof but the rationalization of mind or minds? The concept of reality appears self evident and awaited us. Only a mind or possibly even minds can produce concepts. The concept of reality is being produced by mind/s : God.
Have a nice concept of day.Concept is the closest thing to a certainty we can possibly know. That is a fact. Concepts are only created by a mind or minds. The concept of a table. The concept of a chair. The concept of the space between the table and chair. Someone is decorating or rearranging furniture: God.
So chairs don't exist? They aren't concepts. They are real objects you sit on. You can call a tree stump or rock a chair. The word chair is just a way of saying a thing to sit on. Sitting isn't a concept, it's a real activity.
A concept is a hypothesis. It may be fact or not. A chair is a fact, even if we don't see all the layers of its existence."It’s an awe and wonder and love for the totality and nature."
Yet, according to you, if God had anything to do with it, then you change to: it is all immoral.
Same reality. One minute its awe, wonder and love, the next minute its hot cold cancer and death.
"Chairs exist, although we dont see all the layers of its existence".
Seeing is perception. An image in our mind is created. A concept of a chair is in our mind. Not a chair. We may kick the chair. Nerve endings send pain etc. More perception, experience etc.
We become so convinced it becomes real. But we cannot go to the Court of Reason with that. No proof but what resides in the mind.
Earlier, in a post, you said if I read the Bible and it was some other book I'd say the ot god is a bad guy paraphrased. And that I had too much at stake or something.
Oh but I did. Exactly as you said.
Anyhow, you thought the Buddhists were right but your path took you to pantheism and you are now back to Buddhism.
Maybe your path will lead to God?"It’s an awe and wonder and love for the totality and nature."
"Yet, according to you, if God had anything to do with it, then you change to: it is all immoral.
Same reality. One minute its awe, wonder and love, the next minute its hot cold cancer and death."
It's both. And again, intent is the key here. If a tree falls on your head is the tree to blame? No. But if a person hits you on the head with a 2x4, you're going to be upset. Why? Obviously because the tree didn't intentionally hit you. The person did. Any conscious thing that created this world is sick. Creating conscious beings that can feel and suffer, and making it so we constantly have to kill something to eat and stay alive is outrageous from a conscious thinking being. But if it is just a natural process, there's no intent. No one to blame. Just cause and effect.
And this universe and life is awe inspiring and mind blowing. But it's also dangerous as hell. The universe facilitates us, but it doesn't "care" about us or what we do one way or another. Yet we are a product of it.
"Chairs exist, although we don't see all the layers of its existence".
"Seeing is perception."
Fine so far.
"An image in our mind is created. A concept of a chair is in our mind. Not a chair."
And who told you that nonsense? How is it not something to sit on? Or are you just perception too?
"We may kick the chair. Nerve endings send pain etc. More perception, experience etc."
So how does that make it not real? You don't perceive that it's made of atoms, fine. But you're still seeing an interpretation of reality on this level. Or do you think there is no reality? If so, that idea shoots itself in the foot. Saying there's no reality is like saying there's no truth. Am I to take that as true? In that case your statement is false. If it's not true, your statement is false. So either way your statement is wrong.
"We become so convinced it becomes real. But we cannot go to the Court of Reason with that. No proof but what resides in the mind."
You've just described belief in god.
"Earlier, in a post, you said if I read the Bible and it was some other book I'd say the ot god is a bad guy paraphrased. And that I had too much at stake or something.
Oh but I did. Exactly as you said."
So convince me I'm wrong.
"Anyhow, you thought the Buddhists were right"
About some of the ideas they had about energy and in fact, the interconnection of everything, proven true by science. Something the bible fails at time after time. But I'm not a Buddhist.
"but your path took you to pantheism"
Scientific Pantheism which I helped to create. Not all forms of Pantheism.
"and you are now back to Buddhism."
No. I have no beliefs. Only models made from facts that I'll drop the second they are proven wrong without regret.
"Maybe your path will lead to God?"
Which one? Maybe I already found it. But' its not the one you believe in. Nor is it a conscious separate being. I know for a fact energy exists. ICan you imagine a reality where existence isn't cyclical? Where life can create life, with no corresponding death?
Arguing that existence is immoral is an immature understanding of the symbiotic nature of the totality of life. And it shows a lack of ability to ponder eternal existence, where this moment you inhabit a human form is all you are capable of attempting to understand.
Fear, lack of self awareness, a lack of curiosity....i love actually meeting people who argue such points as yours; in order to get a better understanding of what causes such a barrier to philosophical thoughts.I think we or I am wasting our time. Itsa wonderful world, if it is pantheism. Add a god and we would all be knee deep in fuzzy vegetarian creatures where the plants all painlessly sacrificed themselves.
He is writing speeches to convince himself of what he already believes, but doubts.So pantheism is your idea of a wonderful world. Enjoy your idea (sounds kind of stupid to me) and let others enjoy theirs (which sound kind of stupid to you)
If that''s what you want you wouldn't be here. Christians are obligated to spread their beliefs, aren't they? If you're attitude was live and let live like most moderate Christians, you wouldn't be here either.
I'm here to debate and learn and teach. I don't expect anyone to change their minds. But if you want to actually debate and get the best out of yourself, I'm happy to accommodate you.
And I'm not a Pantheist. I just think the idea has merit, in that if a god doesn't exist, then it's very likely the way things are, from what we know now.
In other words: it's a model I "think." not "believe" from the evidence we have, has a good chance of being right, or close to it. We'll see.Oh and no, Pantheism isn't my idea of a wonderful world. The idea of a what is a wonderful world is irrelevant. It is what it is regardless of how it got here. Your beliefs or Pantheism don't change what the world is.
It is amazing and mindblowingly complex and beautiful.. It's also dangerous as hell, filled with suffering. That doesn't change no matter how it got here.
The difference is intent or lack of. If it was intentional, that's cruel. If there was no intent, then that's just the way it is.I still think you are a little simplistic in your thinking. Intent, or none, the cycle of life where a vast number of life forms share space would be the same, either way. Nothing cruel about it.
Your just making excuses for your evil god, pretending it wouldn't be responsible for what it did. Now that's not just simplistic, it's dishonest.
?? A more honest comment would be I'm making excuses for you understanding of a deity, which you then attempt to claim I believe in.
I'm not responsible for your misconceptions.Then explain it to me. How many times have I asked you now? Convince me.
Wrong again. But perhaps you are wasting your time if you're not actually reading or comprehending what I write, and instead of rationally rebutting me ,choose Trumpian logic to attack me.
“Can you imagine a reality where existence isn't cyclical? Where life can create life, with no corresponding death?”
Sure. I can imagine anything, which is part of the problem. But I’m not interested in imagination in this context. Only facts.
“Arguing that existence is immoral is an immature understanding of the symbiotic nature of the totality of life.”
Trying to put words in mouth? I never said nor implied that existence is immoral. Your god, yes. It is immoral, were it to exist. But not existence itself.. Have you read what I wrote?
“And it shows a lack of ability to ponder eternal existence, where this moment you inhabit a human form is all you are capable of attempting to understand.”
Wrong again. I understand eternal existence and have pondered it likely more than you have. So far I have seen no evidence of it, so while I don’t discount it as a possibility, I can’t say I know it’s true. Neither can you. But what I do know is that when things die or fall apart, the thing they were no longer exists, but all it’s energy dissipates and joins other forms, and exists in one form or other forever. So I know my energy will exist for ever, but not as me.
And again, I know of no mechanism that would hold together a soul or mind after death, and there’s no evidence of a soul. So all that considered, unless there is new evidence that comes to light, I rather doubt souls exist. But I could be wrong, obviously. And then, even if they do it doesn’t mean a god’s involved. It could be the Buddhist version of a cosmic consciousness rather than your god, Or it could be about something else completely. Anything we say about souls is a wild guess.
“Fear, lack of self awareness, a lack of curiosity.”
On who’s part? I have no reason to fear anything. I have no stake in what the truth is. I don’t care what it turns out to be. I just want to know what it is. You can make yourself believe anything. But belief doesn’t make it true. So I fall to nothing, I give no faith to anything. It’s true or it isn’t. And if I can’t know which, I admit it rather than believing something because I’d like it to be true.
I’ve been curious and self aware all my life. I’ve studied countless religions and had countless spiritual experiences. I’ve studied science logic, theology and philosophy extensively. Ask me anything. One of my jobs is science philosophy.
“...i love actually meeting people who argue such points as yours; in order to get a better understanding of what causes such a barrier to philosophical thoughts.”
That’s why I come here to debate. To make people think, including myself. It’s a great way to teach, and to learn.I have proof of immortality. Warning Christian close your eyes, it is not as glorious as a dolfin
The good news is that you can be immortal.
The bad news is that you have to become a floating blob of jelly to do so. Scientists have discovered a jellyfish which can live forever.I do have evidence of existence after this life. No more than that. But, even though that knowledge is not enough to prove the validity of any particular religious theory, that knowledge strongly implies that Christianity is truth, on some level.
But, I think all takes on reality are truth, on some level. We all get an ounce of it, I think. People who go on and on like they know Jack are just sharing the bs they've wrapped around that ounce of truth.I dare you to prove by physical test and science that jellyfish has no immortality.
If you can't, you are not able to prove your God (Yahweh) makes people immoral only to live with him in extreme happiness forever.God is danged if He do, danged if He don't. He is evil if we gotta die and evil if we gotta live in extreme happiness forever.
Your responses are too nonsensical to warrant any more that a
That includes you, right? It's amazing how much projection goes on here. So what real evidence of life after death do you have?
What would be the point of sharing? I can't replicate for you so your response is predetermined.
I don't need validation.Your right, you can't argue with a Christian about their God. They have already made up their minds.
Why would anyone listen to you? Why would anyone listen to me?
You don't know jack. I don't know jack. Your ego is unbelievable.They are no help. Maybe you can help me figure this out. Our minds seem to be creating different concepts of the moon. One much larger when it comes up. There is nothing wrong with our vision. 20/20, 20/15 one near sighted one guy with a patch over an eye. All the same. Our rational minds that judge the concept of the moon knows its an illusion, we can test it. Its the exact same size, no matter what or where. Its almost like there is some stubborn 3rd party in our minds insisting the illusion takes place without ever a hitch or glitch. Which image of the moon is the good interpretation and which is the bad interpretation?
An illusion about a real object has nothing to do with the object. And it doesn't diminish the objects reality. If you're blind, does that mean nothing exists? I hardly think so.
Putting on rose colored glasses does not paint the world red. It only deprives your senses of any other color.
Bending light waves (perhaps through the water/air interface of a lake or river) does not move objects below (ever try throwing a spear at a fish - throw it where you see the fish and you will miss every time).You ever seen those optical illusion like illustrations or patterns online? Made of squares, circles etc. You gotta squint your eyes and stare at them for 10 minutes and they appear to move or you believe one circle is bigger than the other or you see ghostly gray images where there are none. Sometimes ya scratch your head and dont see the illusion, sometimes ya do? Hell, at my age, bad vision, low blood sugar, I can stare at my shoes for 5 minutes and see ghostly gray images. Who needs an illusion?
But like clockwork a moon appears bigger than Dallas and everyone is fooled.No squinting. No staring at it for 30 minutes. No sometimes ya see it sometimes ya dont. Not one person in the billions that lived or have lived, ever said I aint seeing it.
Yet this big fat yellow celestial elephant rises above the horizon room everytime.Not everyone. Only those who don't understand what's going on.
Whats going on? Maybe besides just unseen layers of existence, is it not possible that there could be an added extra part that is not being considered?
Let us speculate that physical reality and all its layers, forces etc are pure information and a focal point. Our side of that focal point is an immaterial ability to percieve information and interpret it. On the mirror side, other side of a focal point is something that is transmitting, immaterial as well but also capable of interpretation or judgement.
The larger moon seems to have something more to it than the basic information. Something made it through the focal point along with the information. The concrete nature of the illusion is not some problem of perception on our side. The illusion has some ingrained aspect more than information.You would love Donald Hoffman. His theory is similar to yours and hopefully he'll test them, if he can.
Everything is obviously information among other things, I can't argue that. And there is no solid material world. Atomic forces like the electromagnetic field create what we think of as solidity. But that doesn't make what we experience illusion, just a misunderstanding of how thing are and how they work. .
As for the immaterial world having some form of conscious awareness, that remains to be seen. There's no evidence for that yet. And I'm willing to wait and see if real evidence does come to light either way..
And again, no matter what the truth of how it's all put together is irrelevant to our lives. We will still have to go to work, pay bills, eat sleep and procreate among other things.
That's why I don't care what the truth is, I just would really love to know what the truth actually is, but it won't change anything, at least not for me."And there is no solid material world."
Are you sure? What is inside a proton? A neutron? Are they solid matter?Well, if you study Quantum field theory, it becomes clear that particles are actually bundled waves of energy that act like particles. Again, the solidity we experience is due to electromagnetic forces.
There are no solid ball type particles QM originally envisioned. There is no particle wave duality. We've known this for over 30 years, but physicists are only starting to talk about it now. We only just started teaching physics students about it .
Why? Two reasons. One, Field theory needed time to prove itself, and second, it's a massive shift in perception. It was thought it would be shocking to people.
But we're getting more and convinced it's true.
It all started with particle colliders. Something very unexpected happened. When we smashed particles together we started getting new particles from the debris that weren't in the original particles. It's like smashing two beer glasses together and getting knives, forks, a watch and a rabbit from the debris.
Particles can't do that. But waves can. Light has a frequency. Depending on what it is, it has a specific colour. Change the frequency you change the colour. If particles are bundled energy waves, it has the potential to be any particle. Thus a collision could create many seemingly unrelated particles.
There are several good video's on the subject on youtube. Sean Carol and the Royal Academy videos on Quantum Field Theory both come to mind.
Thanks for suggesting Hoffman. I do not believe I have read anything from him. Immaterial may have been a poor choice of words and carries connotations in discussions as such. Like the word concept has many different definitions, but I need a word for how our senses gather the information available of what reality is sounding like, feels like, looks like etc and then our brain recreates that in our mind and just saying: "creates concept" fails, too simple and it gets confusing. Ive always had pantheist leanings myself, which sounds heretical to any sunday school teacher. I try to work backwards with what I can find a personal high degree of confidence on what the truth may or may not be and follow it best I can. I like these types of discussions. Thousands of years the great minds of history have debated this stuff. I think sometimes it best the mysteries remain a mystery, the search is half the fun.
“Thanks for suggesting Hoffman.”
No problem. Once you explained what you actually meant it became obvious to me that it has a lot in common with Hoffman. While I disagree with some of his conclusions, his research has been very interesting and informative. But I think he goes too far in his assertions. Only testing will tell, if he’s able to figure out how to test them.
I do not believe I have read anything from him.”
Look him up on Youtube, if you haven’t already.
“ Immaterial may have been a poor choice of words and carries connotations in discussions as such. Like the word concept has many different definitions, but I need a word for how our senses gather the information available of what reality is sounding like, feels like, looks like etc and then our brain recreates that in our mind and just saying: "creates concept" fails, too simple and it gets confusing.”
I’m not sure I can help with a single word. I think of it much like what happens in science. We test and get raw data. That data is fact. But when we interpret the data we’re not necessarily always right. Quantum mechanics makes really good predictions of the quantum world, but there are a dozen interpretations of how and why it works. None of them are needed or used to do the math, and some can’t be proven even in principal.
We see the universe, we experience, we interact. All that is factual data/reality. But our interpretations of that data aren’t necessarily fact. Thus we create models. Religious models, scientific models, and our own individual models. No one knows which model is right, if any. So we have to keep looking and learning without bias. But to do that we can’t already have decided our model is true, or the seeking, and real answers stop.
“ Ive always had pantheist leanings myself, which sounds heretical to any sunday school teacher.”
I thought you were Christian. You may be, but I’m sorry I thought of you as more fundamentalist. I was born Catholic, so I’m a proud heretic myself.
And it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve met quite a few Christians that have Pantheist leanings. I know Buddhist and Hindu Pantheists. And again, it seems to be a model many people create for themselves. Then, when they find there’s a name for it and many like minded people out there who all came to the same model independently, it’s a very good feeling.
“ I try to work backwards with what I can find a personal high degree of confidence on what the truth may or may not be and follow it best I can. I like these types of discussions. Thousands of years the great minds of history have debated this stuff. I think sometimes it best the mysteries remain a mystery, the search is half the fun.”
I prefer these kinds of discussions. I’ve seen you on these forums for several years. But I now have a much better picture of who you are. It’s nice to know you.
In your perception. You agreeing with another person doesn't validate your belief.
No, logic does. And he's right. It's not a matter of perception or belief.
Have you not already made up your mind god exists? Most Christians would say hell yes. That's what belief in god means. So what did he say that was wrong? Nothing.
Neither of you know anything about what I believe. You don't even bother to listen.
You fear different ideas. I get that. Can't empathize but, I get it.So tell us what you believe if we've misunderstood you. And don't worry, I don't fear different ideas, I love them. But I don't accept them as fact until they prove themselves, and if they can't be falsified or verified even in principal, they aren't worth much consideration.
They truly actually believe in their hearts that their perception of reality is reality itself. Its like a religion for them. I'm suprised they are not asking us to tithe or pray to it. It even gets worse. Get this, they have a Savior or Messiah called Christ Hitchens, but they cant show us any proof that myth exists either.
Big moon little moon. Which one is the good concept.No, you believe your perception of reality is reality itself, and you're projecting your bias on others. And Hitch wasn't a savior. Just a guy who told the truth about Christianity. You are the theists, not us. I know it's hard to get your head around.
Agreed. You believe it and you can't prove it, so it's of no use to me. So why tell me you know something you can't prove?
It is not whether i believe a given chair exists or not. It is what I can prove or not. The mind is a remarkable thing. It is using senses to create holographic models of reality in our minds. Its takes the information it receives, like vision, for instance, turns it right side up and we conceive a concept of that vision. Very disturbing for you I can see. Get this, its a holographic type concept that can have motion etc, however it takes small increments of time for the light to travel and our brains to process, so its a concept of reality, in the past. True reality is an empirical nightmare. Not only does the images have to be turned right side up, the mind uses clues like shadows to create the concept of reality. We are biased towards light coming from above eg sunlight. Change the lighting to from below to up and it can fool us and is used for optical illusions.
My point is, there are layers of existence. Each layer interacts with it's constituent parts, and the result is a new layer. Non-material energy interacts to create what we call particles. They interact to form atoms. The interaction of atoms forms a new layer of molecules. Hydrogen and oxygen form water.
Enough water forms rivers. Molecules form rocks and everything else. We humans create new layers too. A culture, an economy, etc. We don't see it, but they act on their own. No one controls them, they result from the interactions of all of us..
So which layer is real? All of them are. And in this one we perceive this form of reality. It's not an illusion of the mind, It directly relates to all other underlying reality. .
...even if we don't see all the layers of its existence.
...things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
A concept of a chair is a fact, even if we don't see all the layers of its existence.
I"ll sit out on this one, too deep for me.
Why does the moon seem to appear larger when it rises above the horizon, yet seems to grow smaller as it tranverses the sky?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_il … f_illusion
Whats up with reality?
Like the joke of the big moron and the little moron sitting on the edge of a cliff.
Who fell off?
Maybe an ancient Chinese secret, can't afford the time, I am stuck at taoism.
Chairs exist through faith alone. Faith that your perception is true. Faith that you are not dreaming, under hypnosis or plugged into a matrix. A crazy person might believe a dog is a chair and try to sit on it. Even with the caveats, you have no objective proof of chairs. You have perception ability and an ability to ponder the perceptions created by your brain.
Look, I have no problem with your faith and belief in chairs, but if you tell others you know chairs are a fact, you are lying to yourself and others.No, you are telling nonsense. It's not logical, sorry. You have faith, I don't. Get that through your head.
Phrases like: "Thats nonsense or thats ridiculous" etc is just another way of saying: I concede, your point Mr. Phoenix.
Mr. Obrian, are you a big moon believer or a small moon believer? You sound like a small moon believer, to me.You obviously live in reverse land. I say I have no beliefs and you keep insisting I do because you can't fathom not having them. . And no, I can't concede a point that's obvious self evident nonsense. .Sorry. I know you wish you could win this argument, but you can't.
No, not reverse land, its - What I Can Prove Land. Our perception of reality is just that: perception.
Now we have moved on. Large moon, small moon. Which perception is true and which is inaccurate.Sorry, you haven't yet made an argument. You just keep repeating the same thing, which is demonsterably false.
A concept is an idea, often an abstract one. A chair is not an abstract idea, it’s an object made of many other objects. We all agree what they are: a device for sitting on. Sitting is a functional physical act, not a concept. A chair too is a physical object as defined by having mass and taking up space. Mass=energy
An idea doesn’t qualify as a physical thing. You can have the concept of a new chair in your mind, but once you build it, it’s not a concept
anymore, it’s a thing. Whatever you want to call it is irrelevant, but calling it a chair is convenient as a symbol anyone speaking English understands.
No it has no natural name, we give it one, but it has a definite purpose and function. It’s as far from mere concept as it gets.
So if you insist everything is just a concept or abstract idea, then I hope you include your concept of god. I’ve heard Christians say that before. Everything on earth is an illusion, only god is real. But then, isn’t the same mind that can’t see anything other than abstract concepts saying only god isn’t one? How would it know? It can only do illusionary concepts. No?
So my having to go to work every day to pay for food and shelter is just an illusion? Really? So I can stop and nothing will happen? You bet something will happen. And thus, it’s not just a concept, it’s reality. Unreal things don’t do anything. No one has yet been attacked by the concept of a dragon. Or for that matter, the concept of an AK47. Only real ones kill. The concept that if you don’t pay your mortgage you’ll get kicked out, isn’t a concept, it’s a statement of factual cause and effect.
So if you want to be sure you know the difference between concepts and reality: real things have mass and take up space, and usually have a function if we’re talking about things made by and for humans. All of us, regardless of our interpretation of the world can make use of the same chair for the same purpose.
Concepts don’t do anything until they are turned from concept to actuality/reality."Concepts don’t do anything until they are turned from concept to actuality/reality."
You make many rational arguments for your Real Chairs Exist Theory.
Rational. Reason. Logic.
Yea. No. Those are in the mind too.
Do you have anything that is not a product of the mind to bring to the hypothetical table today?Logic is a method for thinking, not in the mind. Everyone who actually uses it gets pretty much the same answers. Deductive reasoning ends in a factual answer necessarily if done correctly.
It all depends on your original premise. It has to be a fact, or no matter how logical your line of reasoning it's probably wrong.
So your opening premise is: Everything is in the mind. Is that a fact? No. Not unless you believe you're the only real being. If not,there is a world outside your mind and when you die, the world goes on. People we know die all the time and the world doesn't disappear.
Can you function in this world? Probably, or you wouldn't be talking to me. So you understand how things get done. So you can survive in this world. That means you are interacting with things. With what? Illusions of the mind? No. Real physical objects in a real world.
A layer of reality. And lucky we don't see the atomic world or even the world of cells. If you saw nothing but atoms, you wouldn't know what anything is, nor where one thing starts and another ends.
We see due to light. Nothing has colour. But everything reflects certain wave lengths of light, and that's what we see. White isn't a colour. It's a reflection of all frequencies. Black isn't a colour, if absorbs all frequencies.
So is colour an illusion? No. Light frequency determines the colour of the light, not the object that reflects the light. It's a matter of understanding the world as it is rather than how we assume it is.
No eye sight? You don't see anything, but you can feel things. You learn by touch and sound and smell.
So the things you do effect the world around you, not the things you think. Though you are doing things based on what you think and how you feel.
So it's irrelevant whether the world is made by natural process, or a god, or a 14 year old in a basement with a supercomputer, or anything else you can think of. This is our reality. We have to learn the rules of how to survive hear and now. And that means interacting with the outside world for our survival, even if the world is a made up thing by some god or a computer simulation. You think and feel and have to interact with others for you well being as well as your survival. So even were it all fake in one context, it's not in another.
So your opening premise is wrong, hence your conclusions about it are also wrong. It's just a matter of logic.,
If I were to try and advance a Real Chairs Exist Theory (RCET) I would probably try the gravity angle and how hypothetically sitting on them impedes gravity or some force or another. But thats just me.
Yeah. There is enough distance in and between atoms that you should be able to walk through walls, but you can't due to your electromagnetic field and the electromagnetic field of the wall or floor or chair. They repulse each other. Were that not the case, due to gravity, you'd have fallen to the center of the planet by now. Of course you wouldn't exist to fall anywhere.
Lets recap. In Scientific Pantheism world there are no chairs anymore, but you gained a moon. No wonder the belief inspires awe.
You on drugs? Or perhaps you need some? What kind of nonsense was that?
In a word - Yes, that is precisely what I think. Nothing else makes any logical sense, and the notion of eternal existence in some disembodied form is one that surely nobody could imagine was remotely desirable.
@ Mr. Obrian.
I post from a crappy phone, so its difficult to post here.
Kind of in line with Pantheism. I was thinking today about infinite monkeys typing forever could type all the books ever written etc. But they would also type a lot of gobbledegook too. Plus they would not know what they are doing. As humans we can interpret the information of reality and some like Hoffman, suggests as you alluded too that reality is basically information. Precedent and example weigh more with me weighed against little or nothing else. We have information and we can percieve it. Some information seems unintelligible, just we might expect in a reality of just all information. There would seem to me a chasm between information and perception. The question is whether the information is being conveyed and whether it is intelligent and how would we know either. Its like you say often. Are we the product of some 12 yr old alien kid on an alien computer in some basement. It seems possible. Is it reasonable to assume that reality is being conveyed. Even a monkey chooses to type or not or is it just mechanical and its in the mechanical nature to go off and on with some mechanical circuitry, would even sound like a device. Thoughts?Yes, I do. Faith is a choice. My experiences back up my belief.
I'm too logical. But if there is a God, he may be omnipresent but he certainly isn't omniscient - if he was the world would not be in the dreadful state that it has always been in. Too much starvation, war, selfishness for the world to have been created by a loving god.
I would like to know what you believe happens to us when we die. It is something we must all face. What is your opinion on the subject?
Omniscient is not the same as loving. A god might be omniscient but hateful as all get out at the same time.
But beyond that, it is possible that starvation, war, etc. are necessary, somehow, to produce the end result that God wants. I've heard the analogy of forging iron into a tool a million times whenever hard times strike someone - perhaps we go through bad experiences to produce a change that God wants us to have.
Of course if God is omnipotent, as is often claimed, then the whole things falls apart unless He is also an infinite sadist.My vote is sadist, omnipotent or not. Can we impeach him/her/it?
Thousands of times. And he answered. Or, my subconscious did. Again, through meditation I can experience or meet anyone, and have, including god, Buddha, the cosmic consciousness, Jesus, and anyone else I wanted to talk to,
The mind is an amazing thing.
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