Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

27 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

Hi mauGR1,

A question is meaningful FOR YOU when the answer or answers to it are helpful FOR YOU.

This is not only true for very mundane questions but also for philosophical concepts as addressed on the God sub-forum.

A simple example: It would not be meaningful to ask for directions, when you don't know where you want to go. Missing that essential piece of knowledge, will make it impossible to provide a helpful direct answer.

In other words answers to questions will only be helpful when the receiver can place them in his/her frame-of-reference. 

When someone asks a metaphysical question to which the answer is totally out of his world-view, it will as good as always be to no avail trying to answer. The answer - even if fully correct - will have no anchor-points in the questioner's world-view and it will be rejected or distorted by his pre-conceptions. While that same answer can be an Aha-erlebnis for those that do have the necessary background to appreciate it.

I vividly remember the endless discussions we had 2 years ago with members that had no clue about spirituality and always equaled it with organized religion. Missing that essential concept, their questions were often unanswerable by more knowledgeable members.

 

Thanks for the explanation, now i understand what you mean.

Yep, some folks deny fiercely the existence of God, then ask questions about God, and finally get angry with the folks who try to explain.

It seems unbelievable, but it's true!

????

[mauGR1]

4 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

A fitting cartoon to celebrate my return to the God sub-Forum, after a long ban for speaking truth about covid and the jabs...

That reminds me of the Aesop's fable, when an astronomer falls into a well while watching the stars, and gets a proper scolding by an illiterate peasant.

A reminder not to forget the physical reality while investigating the mysteries of the natural and the supernatural. 

[Sunmaster]

4 hours ago, KhunLA said:

In that case, God has a screwed up sense of humor, giving people/kids, even born with cancer.  

 

That's where I can't believe.   Aside from from everything else.

You see it as a contradiction, but it's not.

 

Life is full of seemingly unfair situations, children with cancer being one, but also the rich and powerful who get away with things that poor people can't, the sh!t that happens to you despite your best efforts, "it's always the best of us who die young", diseases that befall nice people and so on. 

 

But contradictions are only such when you look at them from the perspective where they were created. If you look at them from a higher perspective, you would be able to integrate them in a wider framework. 

 

In the case above, this would mean a situation where the idea of a benevolent higher power AND sick children can coexist at the same time and are not mutually exclusive. 

 

How is that possible? 

The higher perspective tells me that life is a dream-like scenario. Buddhists call it samsara (illusion), Shakespeare called it a stage, where we are the actors.

 

What do we do on this dreamlike stage?

We slip into a body (play a role) to act out certain scenarios, from which we are supposed to learn something. Through us and our experiences, God can experience itself.

 

What could a sick child learn from cancer? Maybe compassion for other suffering creatures. Maybe they agreed to this scenario to teach those around them about compassion. Maybe something else...

 

The point is that each and everyone of us agreed to be here. Nothing happens by chance. There are no victims of circumstances. 

This life is just a blink of an eye for the eternal soul, and from the perspective of the soul, even the hardest life will appear like a fleeting dream. 

 

The way I see it, there's no contradiction.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

27 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

You see it as a contradiction, but it's not.

 

Life is full of seemingly unfair situations, children with cancer being one, but also the rich and powerful who get away with things that poor people can't, the sh!t that happens to you despite your best efforts, "it's always the best of us who die young", diseases that befall nice people and so on. 

 

But contradictions are only such when you look at them from the perspective where they were created. If you look at them from a higher perspective, you would be able to integrate them in a wider framework. 

 

In the case above, this would mean a situation where the idea of a benevolent higher power AND sick children can coexist at the same time and are not mutually exclusive. 

 

How is that possible? 

The higher perspective tells me that life is a dream-like scenario. Buddhists call it samsara (illusion), Shakespeare called it a stage, where we are the actors.

 

What do we do on this dreamlike stage?

We slip into a body (play a role) to act out certain scenarios, from which we are supposed to learn something. Through us and our experiences, God can experience itself.

 

What could a sick child learn from cancer? Maybe compassion for other suffering creatures. Maybe they agreed to this scenario to teach those around them about compassion. Maybe something else...

 

The point is that each and everyone of us agreed to be here. Nothing happens by chance. There are no victims of circumstances. 

This life is just a blink of an eye for the eternal soul, and from the perspective of the soul, even the hardest life will appear like a fleeting dream. 

 

The way I see it, there's no contradiction.

The faith is strong in this one. It is appreciated that you had a go to answer this.

 

You may have had experiences to help you believe there is a god. But did your experiences telegraph the reality you describe? It could be you have linked your experiences to a particular belief system and decided that you'll go with the whole package.

 

What happened in the universe to make individual spirits exist, and be created imperfect and have so much to learn, and in what sense does each spirit agree to go through the life they go through. 

Does that mean the evolved being feels nothing when people die, when anything happens, as it was part of a learning experience. If they do feel sadness then why.

 

Do I and the parents really learn something useful if I die a day after birth. What was going on for the millions of years there was no life - was that when spirits were being created. From what and how and why. 

So someone is tortured for 30 years in a basement and you say it is a kind god and he is helping you to learn from this and the future will be better because of this learning?  Surely many experiences do more unlearning and damage than good. Therefore is there an antigod. 

They are tough issues but I guess I would want to have these sort of answers  if I was to say I believe something. Otherwise I might say I had some experiences that indicate there is a god but beyond that not sure. 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Fat is a type of crazy

[save the frogs]

8 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

God ideas are beyond your understanding, especially as you deny its existence. 

So a good starting point is accepting the possibility of God's existence. 

never denied the existence of god.

denied the accuracy of seth's time-space theories. 

[Sunmaster]

4 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

The faith is strong in this one. It is appreciated that you had a go to answer this.

 

You may have had experiences to help you believe there is a god. But did your experiences telegraph the reality you describe? It could be you have linked your experiences to a particular belief system and decided that you'll go with the whole package.

 

What happened in the universe to make individual spirits exist, and be created imperfect and have so much to learn, and in what sense does each spirit agree to go through the life they go through. 

Does that mean the evolved being feels nothing when people die, when anything happens, as it was part of a learning experience. If they do feel sadness then why.

 

Do I and the parents really learn something useful if I die a day after birth. What was going on for the millions of years there was no life - was that when spirits were being created. From what and how and why. 

So someone is tortured for 30 years in a basement and you say it is a kind god and he is helping you to learn from this and the future will be better because of this learning?  Surely many experiences do more unlearning and damage than good. Therefore is there an antigod. 

They are tough issues but I guess I would want to have these sort of answers  if I was to say I believe something. Otherwise I might say I had some experiences that indicate there is a god but beyond that not sure. 

 

These are a lot of good questions and you're right to ask them. 

I could try to answer them, but the problem is it won't make much of a difference to you. For you, they will be empty words because you don't have a reference point to validate them.

 

The first step is asking them. The next step is listening. Not necessarily to what I or others have to say about them, but to what comes from your inside. That way the answers will have their own validity.

But to do that effectively, you need to learn to trust those inner hints. 

 

Jesus supposedly said "the kingdom of heaven is inside of you". This just means that your inner world is the gateway to this higher state of consciousness. All the answers lie within. Know thyself and you'll know God. 

 

See how everything points in the same direction? 

[save the frogs]

8 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

As to why God doesn't allow us to live in paradise and live on fruit

yeah man .

let me know if you get wind of a parallel universe where we can live off fruit, pizza, beer, and cakes

and never get diabetes. 

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

The higher perspective tells me that life is a dream-like scenario.

It's a dream alright ... WAKE UP

and give me some of that sh!t you're smokin'

@thaibeachlovers

I'll accept TBL's version, created and now running on auto pilot (hands off).

 

At death, have to wait for the sequel.  

 

Religion's ... Heaven or Hell ... nah

 

I'm thinking ... ashes to ashes/dust to dust.

 

Return to God ... doubt it, but if so, we're having words.

Edited March 24, 2023 by KhunLA

[mauGR1]

35 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

never denied the existence of god.

denied the accuracy of seth's time-space theories. 

Ok, sorry, my mistake.

As for God doing " bad things ", well, it has been discussed a lot since aeons, and i have a few opinions about that.. however, no one better than you can find the right answers, when the time is right.????

[Sunmaster]

29 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You may have had experiences to help you believe there is a god. But did your experiences telegraph the reality you describe? It could be you have linked your experiences to a particular belief system and decided that you'll go with the whole package.

I will answer this one because it's about my personal experience.
I had that one major experience which was responsible for changing everything. For several months afterwards I was ecstatic and "blissed out". But I was also <deleted> off, because I wanted to know why nobody had ever told me about this. How come this wasn't taught at school? How come nobody even knows about it? The world would be so much better if this were common knowledge and practiced daily.

I can describe the experience like this....

By surrendering to what wanted to rise up (kundalini), I offered my ego to be obliterated. That construction we call our identity, fell in one big swoop and allowed the kundalini to rise unobstructed through my whole body. Once it reached my head, there was an explosion of light and I had a clarity about myself and the workings of the world that I never even suspected were possible at all.
It was like when you have a USB drive with a lot of junk on it. The kundalini formatted that drive and this allowed it to be filled with a lot more useful and truthful data. 

Now you're right when you doubt that the things I mentioned in the previous post all came from that one experience. They didn't. The experience created a new framework. One which must include everything (the good, the bad, the ugly, science, religion, spirituality and everything in between). If even one aspect of reality doesn't fit this "theory of everything", then that means the theory is not complete. Notice how this is usually the other way around, "This idea doesn't fit my belief system, therefore it must be false."
So then, this framework was created on the ruins of the old one. From here on, I did my own research, reading everything I could get my hands on. The money I spent on books! No internet at that time. Everything I learned found its place in this new framework. 

To answer your question: Yes, a lot of data was downloaded to my "USB drive". This data alone dispensed with the need to believe once and for all. I don't endorse any one single belief system in particular, but try to find the gems of truth in all of them. That's why I can easily jump from talking about scientific consciousness research to meditation, or from physics to mysticism, and I see no contradictions whatsoever. 

Wow, that was a long one. Tippaporn must have infected me with his writing style virus. Yes, I blame him.
 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

46 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I will answer this one because it's about my personal experience.
I had that one major experience which was responsible for changing everything. For several months afterwards I was ecstatic and "blissed out". But I was also <deleted> off, because I wanted to know why nobody had ever told me about this. How come this wasn't taught at school? How come nobody even knows about it? The world would be so much better if this were common knowledge and practiced daily.

I can describe the experience like this....

By surrendering to what wanted to rise up (kundalini), I offered my ego to be obliterated. That construction we call our identity, fell in one big swoop and allowed the kundalini to rise unobstructed through my whole body. Once it reached my head, there was an explosion of light and I had a clarity about myself and the workings of the world that I never even suspected were possible at all.
It was like when you have a USB drive with a lot of junk on it. The kundalini formatted that drive and this allowed it to be filled with a lot more useful and truthful data. 

Now you're right when you doubt that the things I mentioned in the previous post all came from that one experience. They didn't. The experience created a new framework. One which must include everything (the good, the bad, the ugly, science, religion, spirituality and everything in between). If even one aspect of reality doesn't fit this "theory of everything", then that means the theory is not complete. Notice how this is usually the other way around, "This idea doesn't fit my belief system, therefore it must be false."
So then, this framework was created on the ruins of the old one. From here on, I did my own research, reading everything I could get my hands on. The money I spent on books! No internet at that time. Everything I learned found its place in this new framework. 

To answer your question: Yes, a lot of data was downloaded to my "USB drive". This data alone dispensed with the need to believe once and for all. I don't endorse any one single belief system in particular, but try to find the gems of truth in all of them. That's why I can easily jump from talking about scientific consciousness research to meditation, or from physics to mysticism, and I see no contradictions whatsoever. 

Wow, that was a long one. Tippaporn must have infected me with his writing style virus. Yes, I blame him.
 

Thanks. I quite like that explanation. In a sense it is like you are saying that you felt or sensed what something better or more real felt like, and then you could use that as a guide, so when you read interpretations of spirituality, or other stuff, you could see if is consistent with that experience and if it fits in your new frame of reference or not.

You would need to be careful in the interpretation of that experience, and what it left you with, in terms of knowledge and belief and differentiating between the two. 

 

 

[Sunmaster]

2 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Thanks. I quite like that explanation. In a sense it is like you are saying that you felt or sensed what something better or more real felt like, and then you could use that as a guide, so when you read interpretations of spirituality, or other stuff, you could see if is consistent with that experience and if it fits in your new frame of reference or not.

You would need to be careful in the interpretation of that experience, and what it left you with, in terms of knowledge and belief and differentiating between the two. 

 

 

YES! That's exactly what it is. You described it very well, in fact better than I did. ????

I will give your warning some thought. ????

[Acharn]

On 3/22/2023 at 11:55 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

The question is simple. Do you believe that something can come from nothing ( atheism ) or do you believe it was created by an unknowable ( to primitive humans ) force ( belief in a creator )?

Up to you. I'm not here to try and convince posters of anything, but I am here to learn, which requires an open mind. Seems some are of such fixed positions they are unable to accept there is more to life than what we can see with our biological senses, or what our primitive science can prove.

 

BTW, IMO 4 billion years is nothing in cosmic terms, and if humans are the best it can come up with so far, hopefully there is time before the sun's fuel runs out to do better.

I don't have to believe something came from nothing. I believe everything has always been here. That seems to me just as reasonable as believing everything was created by a god who has always been here. I'm not trying to convince you, or anyone else. It's just that this is what I believe.

 

I really don't believe that 4 billion years is an infinitesimal part of 14.5 billion years, which is what I understand is the current  consensus of astronomers of length of the current cycle of Samsara. I can imagine much larger amounts of time, but technically there was no time before the Big Bang. I don't know what the current consensus of astronomers is for the "end" of the universe. I gather they don't expect a real ending, just that eventually entropy is maximized everywhere and things just sit there with the universe expanding forever. Myself, I believe it will all contract to create a new monoblock and a new Big Bang, but I gather most astronomers believe there is not enough mass (I think they include "dark matter" and "dark energy") in the universe to bring about a contraction.

 

When asked if Samsara would ever end, the Buddha refused to answer, saying the question was unprofitable, having nothing to do with the extinguishing of suffering, which was all he was teaching.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Acharn

[Tippaporn]

13 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

A fitting cartoon to celebrate my return to the God sub-Forum, after a long ban for speaking truth about covid and the jabs...

Well, welcome back old friend.  Stay out of trouble, will you?  To do that you must try not to open your mouth. 

[Tippaporn]

11 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

Hi mauGR1,

A question is meaningful FOR YOU when the answer or answers to it are helpful FOR YOU.

This is not only true for very mundane questions but also for philosophical concepts as addressed on the God sub-forum.

A simple example: It would not be meaningful to ask for directions, when you don't know where you want to go. Missing that essential piece of knowledge, will make it impossible to provide a helpful direct answer.

In other words answers to questions will only be helpful when the receiver can place them in his/her frame-of-reference. 

When someone asks a metaphysical question to which the answer is totally out of his world-view, it will as good as always be to no avail trying to answer. The answer - even if fully correct - will have no anchor-points in the questioner's world-view and it will be rejected or distorted by his pre-conceptions. While that same answer can be an Aha-erlebnis for those that do have the necessary background to appreciate it.

I vividly remember the endless discussions we had 2 years ago with members that had no clue about spirituality and always equaled it with organized religion. Missing that essential concept, their questions were often unanswerable by more knowledgeable members.

That's a novel way of explaining why people can't understand answers to questions. 

"The answer - even if fully correct - will have no anchor-points in the questioner's world-view and it will be rejected or distorted by his pre-conceptions."

That about sums it up.  And quite succinctly, too.  Did you know it would have taken me at least 2~3 1,500 word posts to say that exact same thing?  Ask anyone around here. They'll tell you. 

BTW, since it's been awhile since you've been here Sunmaster and I have started a cult.  PM either of us and we'll give you all of the details.  Costs & monthly dues, initiation rites, rules & dogmas, appropriate clothing, the proper supplication techniques when addressing your guru (that would be Sunmaster . . . I'm just his side kick, accountant, tax consultant, real estate investment advisor and harem screener), etc., etc., etc.  Be sure to empty your mind at the door before entering.  Those preconceptions can really do a number on your advancements up the ladder to heaven or bliss.  And make sure you tick off what you're trying to achieve on your application form - 1) heaven or 2) bliss.  Don't tick off both because the result would be too unendurable.  Too many folks asking for refunds because they got heaven instead of the bliss they really wanted and vice versa.  They didn't leave their preconceived notions at the door and mistakenly thought they were the same thing.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Tippaporn

[save the frogs]

2 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

BTW, since it's been awhile since you've been here Sunmaster and I have started a cult. 

it's called Believaholics.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

19 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

But then if everything is on auto pilot since the start you are the same as non-believers 99.9 per cent but for some reason you are convinced there is a god even though it has no actual interaction or judgement or moral guidance or any form of contact in your life. Maybe you believe in the amazingness of reality rather than god. 

Probably the only difference between me and an atheist is that I believe that when my body dies, I ( my soul ) lives on, and I believe that the universe was designed, rather than an accident, or magic. I don't believe anything can come from nothing.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Acharn said:

I really don't believe that 4 billion years is an infinitesimal part of 14.5 billion years, which is what I understand is the current  consensus of astronomers of length of the current cycle of Samsara.

and they KNOW that how? They don't even agree how the universe came to be.

I saw an astronomer on Al Jazeera saying that they don't know more than 10% of what is out there.

 

If you are right, the planet better get on with finding a better guest than humanity, which is busily soiling the nest.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Acharn said:

I don't have to believe something came from nothing. I believe everything has always been here.

It's not logical to assume that "everything was always here", and the universe works on logic, even if it doesn't seem like it.

 

If scientists made a vacuum and could make something appear from nothing in it, I would have to agree with you.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Acharn said:

Myself, I believe it will all contract to create a new monoblock and a new Big Bang, but I gather most astronomers believe there is not enough mass (I think they include "dark matter" and "dark energy") in the universe to bring about a contraction.

I agree, but I think all the matter in the universe will get consumed by black holes and compressed into a single point which will explode in another Big Bang.

Sooooo, IMO God is trying to create the perfect universe and has infinity to get it right. For all we know, this universe could be the trillionth to the power of a trillion edition.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, save the frogs said:

it's called Believaholics.

 

Just which of us on here is religious? I don't know of any at the present time. There used to be a few quite a while ago, but they seem to have given up.

Sooooo, your digs at religion are a bit pointless, IMO.

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It's not logical to assume that "everything was always here", and the universe works on logic, even if it doesn't seem like it.

 

If scientists made a vacuum and could make something appear from nothing in it, I would have to agree with you.

Well, i have to agree with @Acharnhere, if everything which is born, has to die one day, one has to concede that there could be " something " which is not born, and it won't die.

Otherwise we are back to the infamous riddle " who created God".

Nobody created God, God is "all that is".... Otherwise it would not be God. 

Of course I'm using my own logic, so I'm open to criticism. ????

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Acharn said:

When asked if Samsara would ever end, the Buddha refused to answer, saying the question was unprofitable, having nothing to do with the extinguishing of suffering, which was all he was teaching.

Which goes to show he didn't know everything, and to believe that suffering could be extinguished has to be a bit weird, IMO. Jesus said "the poor are always with us" and he could have added suffering to that- it's in human nature to suffer, even after 50,000 years of existence during which we seem to have advanced mentally not a whit from our cavemen ancestors. Still killing each other over BS.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, i have to agree with @Acharnhere, if everything which is born, has to die one day, one has to concede that there could be " something " which is not born, and it won't die.

Otherwise we are back to the infamous riddle " who created God".

Nobody created God, God is "all that is".... Otherwise it would not be God. 

Of course I'm using my own logic, so I'm open to criticism. ????

I don't think I was saying that was wrong, as I agree with all that, Some confusion over what I wrote perhaps, or perhaps I didn't word it well.

 

As for "how was God created", just thinking about that too much makes my head hurt, and I will have to wait a few years to find out.

[thaibeachlovers]

11 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Return to God ... doubt it, but if so, we're having words.

You would only be able to "have words" if God was actually like the religious version- an old man on a big chair.

 

I see God as a force that energizes everything in the universe, which at it's most minute is ( far as I understand it ) electricity.

 

So, when we die, I believe the force that makes us "alive" rather than a blob of meat ( I think the body is just a biological transport system that carries "us" around ) just returns to the greater force that is IMO God.

 

Conveniently, that also explains how God is in everything we see, at the molecular level.

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

I vividly remember the endless discussions we had 2 years ago with members that had no clue about spirituality and always equaled it with organized religion.

Not a lot has changed then!

[mauGR1]

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't think I was saying that was wrong, as I agree with all that, Some confusion over what I wrote perhaps, or perhaps I didn't word it well.

 

As for "how was God created", just thinking about that too much makes my head hurt, and I will have to wait a few years to find out.

I think the question " who created God " is a legitimate question from the doubters..Perhaps a higher God?... and so, ad infinitum. 

So it's just logical to concede the possibility that god is the ultimate reality, it is just "all that is", is non born and thus doesn't die.

[Red Phoenix]

56 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

9 hours ago, Acharn said:

When asked if Samsara would ever end, the Buddha refused to answer, saying the question was unprofitable, having nothing to do with the extinguishing of suffering, which was all he was teaching.

Which goes to show he didn't know everything, and to believe that suffering could be extinguished has to be a bit weird, IMO.

Hi TBL,

His answer does not show 'that the Buddha didn't know everything' as you state. But rather that the level of the person asking the question was such that he would not benefit from the answer (and would as good as certain misinterpret it to fit his pre-conceptions). 

[thaibeachlovers]

23 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

Hi TBL,

His answer does not show 'that the Buddha didn't know everything' as you state. But rather that the level of the person asking the question was such that he would not benefit from the answer (and would as good as certain misinterpret it to fit his pre-conceptions). 

LOL. Given that the Buddha wasn't God it's obvious that he didn't know everything.

 

Pity he had to put up with stupid people asking questions they shouldn't have as too dumb to understand the answer.

 

[KhunLA]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I see God as a force that energizes everything in the universe, which at it's most minute is ( far as I understand it ) electricity.

 

That's actually been proven on a biological level ... all living things have the same amino acids, or something like that, in their DNA strand, that binds us together and proves evolution.

 

Pointed out to me one night will sipping beers with a more intelligent good friend @rickudon while solving the world's problem.   I did a Ronny Reagan 'trust but verify' and damn if he wasn't spot on.

 

Them Midichlorians from Star Wars ???? that bind everything in living things.

 

May the Force be with Us.