Do you believe in God and why

[canuckamuck]

On 1/23/2020 at 11:29 PM, Skeptic7 said:

This is not any shocking revelation or even news at all to any who pay attention! You've already alluded to as much and even said as much while not using the word. Good for you and your honesty in "comung out". 

 

While there is no evidence that any artist is/was anything but naturally talented, can understand you admiring them immensely. I do too. 

 

That said...Eddie Van Halen made the extraordinary Hendrix seem mundane, but Eddie is still not supernatural. IMO...that is. ????

That's not really fair to Hendrix. If they were both chef's Hendrix made a 3 star meal with limited ingredients while Eddy had the use of a fully stocked Michelin restaurant.

[sirineou]

3 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

I believe I love my wife, and  I believe she loves me too. 

But you have some corroborating evidence, right? if she disrespected you, lied to you, did mean hurtful things, or run around with other man, you might believe otherwise, would you not?

[mike787]

i believe in these angels...

[canuckamuck]

On 1/24/2020 at 12:50 PM, Sunmaster said:

As far as I know, Christ promoted the same spiritual concepts as any guru or enlightened yogi do: that the kingdom of God is within each of us and that we have the key to unlock the potential to create heaven on earth (= accessing the god consciousness through practice and becoming one with it). 
He talked about the "single eye":
 

The light of the body is the eye: if

therefore thine eye be single, thy

whole body shall be full of light.
Matthew 6:22

Which is just another way to refer to the third eye in Hinduism/Buddhism. When you focus your attention on the third eye long enough, the kundalini energy (Holy Ghost) may awaken and bath you in white light.
Hence the halos around the images of saints or the little flames on top of their heads.

So, Jesus the Christ didn't make all his sacrifices in order for people to blindly follow his teachings, but pushed them at every turn to be an active part in their own awakening through meditation and prayer. 
Faith may be an important ingredient, but faith without practice is like an arrow without a bow.

I had to look that up. The word single, on which you make your assertion comes from the Greek word haplous. Which can indeed mean single, but also it means unified or whole, even healthy.

I found no commentaries and no context that suggested that he means a single eye. and definitely not a third eye.

The context of that verse is focusing on God, not money and materialism, so I can see how it agrees with your philosophy. But it is not about the third eye.

[canuckamuck]

On 1/24/2020 at 11:18 AM, mauGR1 said:

Months ago i had some similar thoughts, but just yesterday i was thinking that "the troll", in a way, is the beating heart of the thread.

You can't deny he's consistent in his Believe System

He might even be a believer, cleverly disguised as a atheist redneck, playing devil's advocate for the sake of the discussion.

Perhaps without some trollish post, i did that too, this thread would have died already.

 

Btw, "love your enemy" in its simplicity, is a hard, but surely a very direct way to get some glimpse of enlightenment, or so i am told.

I love the troll, and I do think he is the life of this thread. Even though his participation here is simply to give the believers the finger. His devil's advocacy has given a great platform to expose the shallow foundation of materialism.

[luckyluke]

48 minutes ago, sirineou said:

But you have some corroborating evidence, right? if she disrespected you, lied to you, did mean hurtful things, or run around with other man, you might believe otherwise, would you not?

 

I fact I would believe she  do it for carnal or/and monetary reasons.

 

But sorry I don't see what you want to state concretely.

 

 

[luckyluke]

On 1/25/2020 at 10:05 AM, mauGR1 said:

Himalayan climbers, in extreme dangerous and unforgiving environment, have been telling about visions of supernatural beings.

I did the Annapurna trekking, but except being in admiration for the nature, I didn't resent/encounter anything "supernatural".

Of course except the rope suspension bridges it wasn't that dangerous.

But that's me.

Other people other situations.

We are all different and we give all different justification to our experiences.

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

This is from your concept that God in his attempt to make something beautiful failed and made all sorts of terrible things.

But that is you imagination of what God should be. Some investigation would show that creation has the potential to be a place without suffering, but the suffering was brought by man. Man was given free will and could have continued a painless existence.

Now we are in a state of learning the difference between the order of God and the suffering and chaos of 'not God'.

Many still choose the 'not God" option. 

It's ALL imagination! Just playing along for the sake of argument and to drive home all the ridiculous contradictions and awfulness in your flavor of God belief. 

 

And to further play along...the suffering was brought about in that ridiculous story by your god. The omni-everything that made everything exactly the way it turned out...according to it's plan...and knew it all beforehand. Victim blaming is common in religion. Always defend the deity no matter how horrible. ????

[mauGR1]

2 hours ago, sirineou said:

What exists or what does not exist is not a matter of opinion. 

I think you are not quite right here.

Of course there are eternal truths, and possibly an eternal intelligent design, but many, if not most things we see or think, exist only temporarily.

If i love a woman, and she doesn't love me, does that love exist or not ?

Sometimes things exist only in one's opinion, but it would be wrong to say those things don't exist.

 

[mauGR1]

35 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

I did the Annapurna trekking, but except being in admiration for the nature, I didn't resent/encounter anything "supernatural".

Of course except the rope suspension bridges it wasn't that dangerous.

But that's me.

Other people other situations.

We are all different and we give all different justification to our experiences.

Well, i was talking about extreme, life threatening situations, and the visions that may result from such situations.

I also walked to the grocery yesterday, and got no visions of supernatural beings ????

[mauGR1]

35 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

Always defend the deity no matter how horrible.

Not as horrible as you do.

Defending your deity (materialism) when it's obvious to most how wrong it is.

Thanks God materialists are not the majority, otherwise humans would have exterminated each other long time ago.

[luckyluke]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, i was talking about extreme, life threatening situations, and the visions that may result from such situations.

I never got visions and hope I never will, if that are the conditions.

[mauGR1]

3 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

I never got visions and hope I never will, if that are the conditions.

Well, my point was, the things we see in our minds, are they existing somewhere, or are they born out of our imagination ?

I think there can be countless, different cases, and it's not easy to give a straight answer.

[Sunmaster]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

What exists or what does not exist is not a matter of opinion. 

Look around you....it obviously IS a matter of opinion. Who decides what is real and what isn't? Science?

I would like to remind you that science is still in its infancy when it comes to explain reality. 

Like I already said once, were xrays real before science discovered them? Viruses? DNA? Of course they existed independently from science's understanding of them.

In equal manner, science today is unaware of or can't explain many other things (dark matter, junk DNA...). Yet they exist and are part of reality.

So, who decides what is real and what is not?

 

In a sense you're right though. Everything that exists is independent from our opinions. They just are. 

But I'm not sure you meant it that way. 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Sunmaster

[mauGR1]

3 hours ago, sirineou said:

as long as our beliefs do not compromise eachothers lives, which I am sure you will agree is not the case with all religious people. 

I know whom you refer too, but your position is quite debatable.

Can you honestly say that atheists are, on average, morally superior to believers ?

 

Or perhaps we should regard modern materialism as a new religion among others, with its hordes of followers, from the moderate to the fanatic ?

 

There's no wonder people are confused, i believe that one needs some sort of "goal" in life, it helps to preserve some degree of sanity.. Materialism as a religion has the potential to be more socially disruptive than any belief.

... And put "science" in charge, when you know that the "priests" are humans... Frightening.

[canuckamuck]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

I know whom you refer too, but your position is quite debatable.

Can you honestly say that atheists are, on average, morally superior to believers ?

 

Or perhaps we should regard modern materialism as a new religion among others, with its hordes of followers, from the moderate to the fanatic ?

 

There's no wonder people are confused, i believe that one needs some sort of "goal" in life, it helps to preserve some degree of sanity.. Materialism as a religion has the potential to be more socially disruptive than any belief.

... And put "science" in charge, when you know that the "priests" are humans... Frightening.

Atheists are very evangelistic. They are often quite bothered by people of faith and do what they can to steer them into right thinking. A Christian in a room full of atheists is like a nondrinker in room full of people drinking. Everybody keeps asking them if they have a drink or would they like one. It is like the presence of a nondrinker is a threat to the crowd.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by canuckamuck

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

Atheists are very evangelistic.

I am not very familiar with the evangelistic sect, but i completely agree with your point.

Of course, if you let some of the dear atheists know that they are as intolerant as the Spanish Inquisition, they will be in full denial mode in a moment.

 

[Skeptic7]

4 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Not as horrible as you do.

Defending your deity (materialism) when it's obvious to most how wrong it is.

Thanks God materialists are not the majority, otherwise humans would have exterminated each other long time ago.

Nonsense ????

[mauGR1]

Truth hurts, but don't worry, after a couple of glasses you should be ok

[Skeptic7]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Truth hurts, but don't worry, after a couple of glasses you should be ok

Agreed and back atcha. Cheers! ????

[Sunmaster]

2 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

Atheists are very evangelistic. They are often quite bothered by people of faith and do what they can to steer them into right thinking. A Christian in a room full of atheists is like a nondrinker in room full of people drinking. Everybody keeps asking them if they have a drink or would they like one. It is like the presence of a nondrinker is a threat to the crowd.

 

Good point and something I have experienced first hand. Thankfully, my atheist friends are open-minded enough to listen to other views. We have a silent agreement that we don't evangelize each other, but we do have very interesting discussions.

If you think about it, the possibility that there might be more to life than what science or your 5 senses can show you, is indeed a threat to the strict materialistic worldview. What if everything you've been told and taught up to now has been a lie, or at best, only a small fraction of what life really is? This is was my first thought was after I had the kundalini experience. "Why has nobody told me about it?" "How comes this isn't common knowledge?" "Why on earth is this not the common goal of all of humanity?". I found out that the knowledge has always been there, but it's hidden in plain sight and it takes a conscious first step of the seeker for the truth to gradually reveal itself.
The truth is threatening only to those minds that are too rigid in the illusory conviction, that they already have all the answers. 
 

[sirineou]

5 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Look around you....it obviously IS a matter of opinion. Who decides what is real and what isn't? Science?

I would like to remind you that science is still in its infancy when it comes to explain reality. 

I have repeated the same thing several times and for some reason that I don't understand you don't seem to get it.I will repeat it one last time. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful by saying the above, simply frustrated.

   Science does not explain anything, Science is the process by which things are explained developing a technology. 

  To be fair, I can see how confusion could arise, because the term is sometimes used to describe the theory of the process that describes a particular technology as "the science of" . These are simply semantics. 

  A Technology might be inadequate to describe everything , it will alway be, there will always be Gaps. but the Scientific process will always be the only way to examine these Gapa in the hope of reducing them. 

Hence "God of the Gaps" where the metaphysical resides in the Gaps of our understanding, and as these gaps are explained and close,  the metaphysical retreats to further Gaps.    

[Sunmaster]

2 minutes ago, sirineou said:

I have repeated the same thing several times and for some reason that I don't understand you don't seem to get it.I will repeat it one last time. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful by saying the above, simply frustrated.

   Science does not explain anything, Science is the process by which things are explained developing a technology. 

  To be fair, I can see how confusion could arise, because the term is sometimes used to describe the theory of the process that describes a particular technology as "the science of" . These are simply semantics. 

  A Technology might be inadequate to describe everything , it will alway be, there will always be Gaps. but the Scientific process will always be the only way to examine these Gapa in the hope of reducing them. 

Hence "God of the Gaps" where the metaphysical resides in the Gaps of our understanding, and as these gaps are explained and close,  the metaphysical retreats to further Gaps.    

For me, the metaphysical is everywhere, it's in the gaps and as well as what science has already explained/described. Since God is the ground of all being, there is nothing that is not God. Explaining something through science does in no way take away the sacredness of the thing explained. It may contradict some stories in the bible (and for that I'm very grateful), but it doesn't simply suck out Spirit from the equation. 

[sirineou]

13 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

For me, the metaphysical is everywhere, it's in the gaps and as well as what science has already explained/described. Since God is the ground of all being, there is nothing that is not God. Explaining something through science does in no way take away the sacredness of the thing explained. It may contradict some stories in the bible (and for that I'm very grateful), but it doesn't simply suck out Spirit from the equation. 

 Pantheism is a different thing, and worthy of entertaining, but Science controls all that are south of North. It might be fun to consider what is North of North , but that's all that it is, until Science expands the frontier further North.  

[Sunmaster]

4 minutes ago, sirineou said:

 Pantheism is a different thing, and worthy of entertaining, but Science controls all that are south of North. It might be fun to consider what is North of North , but that's all that it is, until Science expands the frontier further North.  

It's not only fun to consider what is north of north, but in my view it is essential to our personal development as well as urgently necessary for the development for our society as a whole. 
And if "north of north" represents the (spiritual) Unknown for you, then I can only say: winter is coming! ???? 

[sirineou]

7 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

It's not only fun to consider what is north of north, but in my view it is essential to our personal development as well as urgently necessary for the development for our society as a whole. 
And if "north of north" represents the (spiritual) Unknown for you, then I can only say: winter is coming! ???? 

 Sure I also enjoy considering what is north of north, how do you think I got to the conclusions I have? but also wise to keep it in proper perspective.

I hope this time the ending is better when winter comes ????

Edited January 27, 2020 by sirineou

[mauGR1]

19 minutes ago, sirineou said:

 Pantheism is a different thing, and worthy of entertaining, but Science controls all that are south of North. It might be fun to consider what is North of North , but that's all that it is, until Science expands the frontier further North.  

Not going to happen imho, no money to be made there.

Science, intended as the search for the truth, is possibly the highest achievement of humans, a divine input, if i'm allowed to say that.

Instead science nowadays tends to become a convenient excuse to justify the greed of the materialists, like in the past religion has been used to justify all sort of horrors.

 

[sirineou]

13 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Not going to happen imho, no money to be made there.

Science, intended as the search for the truth, is possibly the highest achievement of humans, a divine input, if i'm allowed to say that.

Instead science nowadays tends to become a convenient excuse to justify the greed of the materialists, like in the past religion has been used to justify all sort of horrors.

 

 Technology!! nor Science.. In fact IMO religion has a part to play in our current state of affairs..

  It was Abrahamic  Monotheistic religion that put an end to the hellenistic times, and plunge as in the dark ages depressing  our social development , to the point where our social development did not keep pace with our technological development and could be the end of  all of as.  

Edited January 27, 2020 by sirineou

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, sirineou said:

 Technology!! nor Science.. In fact IMO religion has a part to play in our current state of affairs..

  It was Monotheistic religion that put an end to the hellenistic times, and plunge as in the dark ages depressing  our social development , to the point where our social development did not keep pace with our technological development and could be the end of as.  

I am convinced that the rulers of the 'empire' chose monotheism over polytheism to create a unity among different races and tribes, so it was a political choice.

Unity in the empire made it easier for the rulers to impose coins and notes as useful tools to simplify the trade.

Materialism disguised as the voice of reason is turning the masses into useful idiots, who work relentlessly for the gain of a few.

Now the internet, together with other technologies, is further eroding all freedoms.

In the end it's all about controlling the masses.

[sirineou]

10 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

I am convinced that the rulers of the 'empire' chose monotheism over polytheism to create a unity among different races and tribes, so it was a political choice.

Agreed, that's my main argument against present day Christianity. That the politics have eclipsed the philosophy 

 

10 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Materialism disguised as the voice of reason is turning the masses into useful idiots, who work relentlessly for the gain of a few.

Your first paragraph indicates the opposite.

10 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Now the internet, together with other technologies, is further eroding all freedoms.

In the end it's all about controlling the masses.

 Don't know what the internet has to do with  any of what we are talking about, it is simply a means of communication, I am sure the same was said about books as they dances around the fires. 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by sirineou