Is There A God?

[ding]

Most people think of "god" as a being who resembles them, hangs out in a place called "heaven" and passes harsh judgements on us.
...
Nearly all religions have three things in common: 1. They believe in a god. 2. Only their religions is right. 3. Fear.
...
I do not subscribe to any religious dogma any more than I subscribe to any political dogma. I believe there is a force of energy that is so great it can create things from nothing, including the human life form.

I'm intellectually sympathetic to your non-belief about god fantasies as worshipped in today's religions.
Your position is relatively reasonable, but you must admit, "force of energy" is a very general concept that also has a problem with origins.
Therefore, without ANY knowledge about original energy sources and their transformation to various masses, we can only be agnostic about whether a "god" exists.

You don't sound agnostic.

Apparently, you don't understand what agnosticism is.
Here is a simplified explanation that even you should understand:
No knowledge = no belief.

Apparently you are unable to make the leap in logic that if you have no knowledge and no belief that it is illogical for you to be arguing with those that do. Therefore, your actions prove you are not agnostic.

It is logical for me to ask you what knowledge you have to support your belief.
So tell us your knowledge.
Fantasy does not count.

Sure, but you are arguing with me about it like you have a horse in the race.

 

[ding]

Our own experiences and reasoning abilities.

As you know, and we have discussed this before, experiences are subjective and can relate to objective reality if other brains perceive the same experiences (in scientific methodology, this can be an example of "convergent operations").
Then, you can try interpreting your data to explain or predict something called "knowledge".

So, please describe your "knowledge" about a "god".

You are trying to skip steps. First we must establish that the universe itself and everything in it can be used as evidence to prove this point.

So, you also have no knowledge of any god, but you want to assume that ... because it makes you feel better?

The observable universe has patterns, but no god is needed to explain many patterns we see & understand.
The patterns occur naturally based on our limited scientific knowledge.
A god-of-the-gaps explanation is reflective of a childish "easy button" for those who prefer to believe their fantasy.

Don't be silly. I can know God by what He has created. I can learn a great many things about Him.

You think you "know" a god, but you have not proven that you are not deluded.

Only because you won't accept the evidence that my argument is based on because you are afraid it will upset your precious apple cart.

 

[Mudda]

As you know, and we have discussed this before, experiences are subjective and can relate to objective reality if other brains perceive the same experiences (in scientific methodology, this can be an example of "convergent operations").
Then, you can try interpreting your data to explain or predict something called "knowledge".

So, please describe your "knowledge" about a "god".

You are trying to skip steps. First we must establish that the universe itself and everything in it can be used as evidence to prove this point.

So, you also have no knowledge of any god, but you want to assume that ... because it makes you feel better?

The observable universe has patterns, but no god is needed to explain many patterns we see & understand.
The patterns occur naturally based on our limited scientific knowledge.
A god-of-the-gaps explanation is reflective of a childish "easy button" for those who prefer to believe their fantasy.

Don't be silly. I can know God by what He has created. I can learn a great many things about Him.

You think you "know" a god, but you have not proven that you are not deluded.

Only because you won't accept the evidence that my argument is based on because you are afraid it will upset your precious apple cart.

Someone else won't agree with you and you're getting upset? Gee, what a surprise.

 

[ding]

Our own experiences and reasoning abilities.

As you know, and we have discussed this before, experiences are subjective and can relate to objective reality if other brains perceive the same experiences (in scientific methodology, this can be an example of "convergent operations").
Then, you can try interpreting your data to explain or predict something called "knowledge".

So, please describe your "knowledge" about a "god".

You are trying to skip steps. First we must establish that the universe itself and everything in it can be used as evidence to prove this point.

So, you also have no knowledge of any god, but you want to assume that ... because it makes you feel better?

The observable universe has patterns, but no god is needed to explain many patterns we see & understand.
The patterns occur naturally based on our limited scientific knowledge.
A god-of-the-gaps explanation is reflective of a childish "easy button" for those who prefer to believe their fantasy.

Don't be silly. I can know God by what He has created. I can learn a great many things about Him.

You think you "know" a god, but you have not proven that you are not deluded.

Bless your heart.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Prophesy. And codes that elude man. Physics.

The Bible is 1/4 prophesy. No other book is like it. Over 10,000 predictions, and to the contrary, they are not vague, they are precise. To be able to tell us history in advance one has to be able to SEE the end from the beginning. That would take traversing dimensions and time. < the dimension that Einstein needed for his equation and the bane of his existence.
Scientists didn't create gravity or relativity or singularity. What the scientists are discovering is what someone else used to create it all. For years we thought 3 dimensions. Then 4. Yet, the Bible used a sixth, and went so far as to describe the attributes of dimensions. Our best scientists just deduced that there may be unlimited dimensions. They are slowly, but inexorably finding the King of Physics. God. One of the best scientists thinks he HAS found him.
The big bang didn't create Physics, Physics created the big bang.

If you don't believe every letter in that Bible was inspired by God, then I challenge you to write using the same codes as God did.
I will give you the criteria for writing a genealogy that God followed.

 

[Brynmr]

You think you "know" a god, but you have not proven that you are not deluded.

So if he can't prove he's not deluded - he's deluded?

I ask because I have had extraordinary spiritual experiences that I've never been about to prove to anyone, actually happened. This doesn't concern me because I think it's up to each individual to find his own experiences - his own path. I don't think it's possible to prove our experiences to a sceptic.

 

[hobelim]

You think you "know" a god, but you have not proven that you are not deluded.

So if he can't prove he's not deluded - he's deluded?

I ask because I have had extraordinary spiritual experiences that I've never been about to prove to anyone, actually happened. This doesn't concern me because I think it's up to each individual to find his own experiences - his own path. I don't think it's possible to prove our experiences to a sceptic.

I don't doubt that you have had an extraordinary spiritual experience. I see no reason for you say so unless it was true.


My question is, don't you need concrete proof aside from your personal experience that would confirm that your conclusion that it was an experience with God is accurate?

Have you ever questioned your sanity? Without any independent confirming sign, how else would you know it was real?

How else could you be certain that your spiritual experience was a good experience and not a bad one, a vision from God or an illusion from the devil, an actual event or a fantasy?

Moses did leave a clear way for people to test whether a person has has had contact with God or not.

Do you know what it is? Wouldn't you like to be certain whether your experience was of God or not? To have what you believe confirmed by reality?

 

[hangover]

Is There A God?

Didn't you know...he got elected to the White House....and he's just like the bible says he is.....egotistical, jealous, vindictive, and makes people suffer that don't worship him.

 

[Brynmr]

I don't doubt that you have had an extraordinary spiritual experience. I see no reason for you say so unless it was true.


My question is, don't you need concrete proof aside from your personal experience that would confirm that your conclusion that it was an experience with God is accurate?

I'm a Buddhist, not a Christian so my experiences didn't include a god of any sort. I'll answer your question with a very simple example.Let's say there's a tent in the middle of a field. Your friend says to you "go see what's in it". So you walk across the field and look inside the tent and you see a young dragon which turns it's head to look at you. You say 'holy crap!' You rub your eyes and look again and see the same dragon.

Now, how will you ever convince your friend there's a live dragon in the tent unless he walks across the field and looks for himself? You can't.

Have you ever questioned your sanity? Without any independent confirming sign, how else would you know it was real?

For the same reason you knew what you saw in the tent.

How else could you be certain that your spiritual experience was a good experience and not a bad one, a vision from God or an illusion from the devil, an actual event or a fantasy?

That would be like your friend asking you if the dragon wasn't really a horse.

Do you know what it is?

Of course I do. They were profoundly self explanatory.

Wouldn't you like to be certain whether your experience was of God or not? To have what you believe confirmed by reality?

The experiences themselves were confirmation and far more 'real' than what we normally experience as "reality".

Have you ever watched the movie 'Contact'? My experiences (2 primarily) were no less extraordinary than Ellie's (I would argue more extraordinary) and equally unbelievable by skeptics.

 

[hobelim]

I'm a Buddhist, not a Christian so my experiences didn't include a god of any sort. I'll answer your question with a very simple example.Let's say there's a tent in the middle of a field. Your friend says to you "go see what's in it". So you walk across the field and look inside the tent and you see a young dragon which turns it's head to look at you. You say 'holy crap!' You rub your eyes and look again and see the same dragon.

Now, how will you ever convince your friend there's a live dragon in the tent unless he walks across the field and looks for himself? You can't.

I do understand have had that exact problem all of my adult life, so don't get me wrong, but there is a way to make independent confirmation that would convince your friend that God was with you even if he never saw it with his own minds eye. The confirmation of the unseen would be impossible to not see or unsee, even if they never had as direct or profound an experience as you.


Many things that Jesus said made no sense until after they happened. Jesus knew this and said, " I am telling you these things before they happen so that when they happen you may come to believe that I have been sent by God. " ...God, who is the only existing being capable of knowing what is yet to come. A future that science claims is fundamentally impossible to know or foresee

The experiences themselves were confirmation and far more 'real' than what we normally experience as "reality".

Have you ever watched the movie 'Contact'? My experiences (2 primarily) were no less extraordinary than Ellie's (I would argue more extraordinary) and equally unbelievable by skeptics.

Yes, I have seen contact. And if your experiences are anything like that, then I am pleased to make the acquaintance of another time traveler.


I am not a skeptic. I have had my experiences confirmed by a significant and historical current event predicted in front of many skeptics and documented in great detail 20 years before the fact and eventually seen by everyone no matter what anyone believes or doesn't believe.

As I said, Moses left a way for people who have not been contacted by God to be sure that someone else who claimed contact actually has contact with the living God.

Until something like that happens you are right, no one would ever be convinced just by your testimony alone and you too should remain skeptical and open to the possibility that you just have an overactive imagination....

I am not doubting your conclusions, I am just saying to not seek proof for the truth of what you have come to believe is the truth leaves you open to the possibility of having been misled by your own mind.....

 

[Brynmr]

I never connected with "God". That wasn't my experience nor did it have anything to do with "time" travel (and neither did Ellie's). I used her experience to make a point.

 

[hobelim]

I never connected with "God". That wasn't my experience nor did it have anything to do with time travel. I used Ellie's experience to make a point.

Ok, why don't you just come out with it and say what it was?


You emptied your mind and felt strange? You thought your consciousness left your body during a self induced hypnotic state?

What?

You do know that to not seek proof for the truth of what you have come to believe is the truth leaves you open to the possibility of having been misled by your own mind just like anyone else who ever looked into a tent and saw a young dragon look at them or anyone who ever thought that they had a profound spiritual experience because they thought they saw Jesus on a sandwich.....

 

[Brynmr]

I never connected with "God". That wasn't my experience nor did it have anything to do with time travel. I used Ellie's experience to make a point.

Ok, why don't you just come out with it and say what it was?


You emptied your mind and felt strange? You thought your consciousness left your body during a self induced hypnotic state?

What?

You do know that to not seek proof for the truth of what you have come to believe is the truth leaves you open to the possibility of having been misled by your own mind just like anyone else who ever looked into a tent and saw a young dragon look at them or anyone who ever saw Jesus on a sandwich.....

I'm not going to discuss it publicly. Not in a forum like this. It's not germane to the discussion anyway.

 

[hobelim]

I never connected with "God". That wasn't my experience nor did it have anything to do with time travel. I used Ellie's experience to make a point.

Ok, why don't you just come out with it and say what it was?


You emptied your mind and felt strange? You thought your consciousness left your body during a self induced hypnotic state?

What?

You do know that to not seek proof for the truth of what you have come to believe is the truth leaves you open to the possibility of having been misled by your own mind just like anyone else who ever looked into a tent and saw a young dragon look at them or anyone who ever saw Jesus on a sandwich.....

I'm not going to discuss it publicly. Not in a forum like this. It's not germane to the discussion anyway.

Not a problem..

Still there is a way to either confirm or refute what you have come to believe was a significant spiritual experience.

But you would have to want to base your conclusion that your experience was real on more than just faith in what your mind alone, flawed, subjective, and so easily confused, has perceived. After all the mind has evolved to be much better suited to deal with what it can see, how to kill a large animal, strip its carcass and make use of its remains- and not very well suited to establish the truth of what it can imagine but not see....In that department, human beings have a long way to go....

 

[Brynmr]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

 

[hobelim]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

Thats fine and good.

Some people have been given only a glimpse of whats is out there, only enough to affect only themselves for good or evil.

If it has been for good, you will be given more.

This is the way it has always been..

small moves, small moves...

 

[Brynmr]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

Thats fine and good.

Some people have been given only a glimpse of whats is out there, only enough to affect only themselves for good or evil.

If it has been for good, you will be given more.

This is the way it has always been..

small moves, small moves...

I agree. One day I will be a Buddha then I will be able to help many people.

 

[hobelim]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

Thats fine and good.

Some people have been given only a glimpse of whats is out there, only enough to affect only themselves for good or evil.

If it has been for good, you will be given more.

This is the way it has always been..

small moves, small moves...

I agree. One day I will be a Buddha then I will be able to help many people.

People on a path tend to become what they strive to be. I hope you do help many people...

Personally I wouldn't open my mouth to teach anybody anything without having more than a personal faith that what I would be teaching them is the truth.. I wouldn't want to take that risk of presenting something as truth that could very well be the figment of my imagination and be responsible for defiling and contaminating the minds of people who are in all sincerity seeking truth. In my opinion, to mislead others, whether as a result of great errors made in my own speculations or whether I had been misled myself, would be a deliberate sin that would amount to murder.

Just something for you to think about if you like to think about things..

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity and all that....

 

[Brynmr]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

Thats fine and good.

Some people have been given only a glimpse of whats is out there, only enough to affect only themselves for good or evil.

If it has been for good, you will be given more.

This is the way it has always been..

small moves, small moves...

I agree. One day I will be a Buddha then I will be able to help many people.

People on a path tend to become what they strive to be. I hope you do help many people...

Personally I wouldn't open my mouth to teach anybody anything without having more than a personal faith that what I would be teaching them is the truth.. I wouldn't want to take that risk of presenting something as truth that could very well be the figment of my imagination and be responsible for defiling and contaminating the minds of people who are in all sincerity seeking truth. In my opinion, to mislead others, whether as a result of great errors made in my own speculations or whether I had been misled myself, would be a deliberate sin that would amount to murder.

Just something for you to think about if you like to think about things..

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity and all that....

A Buddha can do nor harm. Neither can an Arhat or a Bodhisattva.

 

[hobelim]

I suffer no doubt about what I experienced. I need no more confirmation than what was found embedded in the experience itself.

Thats fine and good.

Some people have been given only a glimpse of whats is out there, only enough to affect only themselves for good or evil.

If it has been for good, you will be given more.

This is the way it has always been..

small moves, small moves...

I agree. One day I will be a Buddha then I will be able to help many people.

People on a path tend to become what they strive to be. I hope you do help many people...

Personally I wouldn't open my mouth to teach anybody anything without having more than a personal faith that what I would be teaching them is the truth.. I wouldn't want to take that risk of presenting something as truth that could very well be the figment of my imagination and be responsible for defiling and contaminating the minds of people who are in all sincerity seeking truth. In my opinion, to mislead others, whether as a result of great errors made in my own speculations or whether I had been misled myself, would be a deliberate sin that would amount to murder.

Just something for you to think about if you like to think about things..

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity and all that....

A Buddha can do nor harm. Neither can an Arhat or a Bodhisattva.

I understand the reasoning behind that belief but let me ask you, do you think it is possible for a person with absolutely no compassion to falsely claim to have attained Nirvana for completely selfish reasons?

Do you think it is possible for those who are aspiring to selflessness but have not yet been enlightened to be deceived by a person whose only motivation is power, control, and personal gain in the same way any deceptive religious cult leader takes advantage of those who are lost, confused, and seeking spiritual peace to use or discard, fleece or devour, as if the people taken in by them were nothing more than livestock, their own personal possessions??

How would the unenlightened know for sure if someone else has been enlightened or not?

How would they be able to tell the difference between an Arhat or a demon?

Are you beginning to understand the need for demonstrable and verifiable proof that even the blind could see?