Do you believe in God and why

[Skeptic7]

7 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

I respect other people meaning of logic, but that doesn't mean that everyone should use logic in the same way.

“As Above, So Below”
― Hermes Trismegistus

This quote is often cited, as a short, but meaningful explanation of what we call reality.

I've never heard anyone associate this with reality, nor any meaningful explanation of what "we" call reality. Maybe what "you" call reality...but the use of the word "we" is a very broad, presumptive stroke. 

[mauGR1]

9 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

I've never heard anyone associate this with reality, nor any meaningful explanation of what "we" call reality. Maybe what "you" call reality...but the use of the word "we" is a very broad, presumptive stroke. 

For "what we call reality" i was meaning the reality we can all agree with, i.e. the ice is cold, the fire is hot, the sky is blue and so on.

[transam]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

For "what we call reality" i was meaning the reality we can all agree with, i.e. the ice is cold, the fire is hot, the sky is blue and so on.

And "Gods" are man made....

[OneEyedPie]

If there's a hell below we're all going to go [Curtis Mayfield].

 

I'm not a religious person by any means particularly as I had to attend church and Sunday school as a child and found it mind-numbingly boring.  The church smelled musty and the old people didn't seem to have anything better to do.  My primary school also went full on with Christianity and had to spend at least two to three hours a week singing hymns [I didn't sing but was supposed to] and the occasional prayer.  There was one Jehovah's Witness and he was allowed to leave the hall as soon as the headmaster rolled his sleeves up ready for some happy, clappy psalms - lucky bastard.  

 

As with all beliefs I have my own but not sure what it all means so don't expect a straight answer from me either.  To be honest I don't even know if the following has anything to do with a god or creator the universe or anything else but it's all very bizarre and inexplicable which broadly covers the OP's subject matter but it all involves one common theme and that's nature in its various forms, if indeed nature has various forms or only one form or no form.

 

I've vividly witnessed many disasters in my dreams [not sure why only death, destruction and injury, but never mind] which are normally labelled precognitive.  I've foreseen train, plane and car crashes, terrorist atrocities, natural disasters, 9/11, Princess Diana's demise and incidents involving loved ones whether it be death or accidents.  The dreams were / are generally cryptic in nature but they're distinct from normal nightly visions so, on waking, I'm aware whether they're normal or predictive. 

 

So, I'm no different to someone that doesn't have a precognitive dream about, for instance, a natural disaster just that I'll know it's coming and others will witness it through the media in the passage of time.  Maybe we're all precognitive but just ignore them or can't decode their meaning, I don't know.  Maybe they're genetic, magnetic or signals from the cosmos, again I don't know.  

 

This history does make me question the meaning of time in that is it linear, cyclical, circular, parallel or random or whether time exists at all.  Again, I haven't a clue but I think all the factors of time, science, nature are straight out of the same giant pot of whatever it is! 

 

Not sure why the various so called religions fight each other as seems a pointless and inane waste of time to me as I don't consider there's a particular god, only nature.

 

The only one absolute certainty that I can confirm is that life and the universe is very strange.  

[Enki]

Does anyone know how to disable notifications for a sub forum you once visited ?

 

I actually did not assume that "such a question" runs for ever and I get 10 new posts every day ... (facepalm).

[Enki]

10 hours ago, transam said:

If there is a "God" then there should not be a zillion religions on Earth that all seem to think theirs is the only "God", of which some want to kill off the other cos they think they are wrong with their "God"....

Well, the believes overlap. For americans (and some europeans) it seems hard to believe (pun intended) that many religions believe in the same god, and then again are subdivided into sub-religions: Christians (how many sub sections do they have?), Jews, Muslims, Jesites - all believe in the same god.

 

Hindi have hundreds of gods.

 

Buddhists don't believe in gods - as in worship - but acknowledge that there are zillions of gods - and every human can become a god.

 

Shinto believes everything can have/has a soul, aka a stone, a rock a river a mountain a tree, and hence a sword or a human, too. They don't distinguish between gods, demons, ghosts ... all are Kami.

[Ireland32]

I was in Cardiac unit, I didn’t give it much thought...


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

[sweatalot]

I like the philosophy of Neville Goddard. He says God exists. But he/she is not a being outside of us, separated from us. We are not subordinate beings that depend on the mercy of some big Zampanoo.

God is our consciousness, our awareness. He is inside us. He is us.

(In the following I only use "he" for simplicity - but I don't think God - our consciousness of being - has a gender)

 

And God can be experienced in meditation. In  Buddhist or Hindu meditation (or others as well) you experience a feeling that the world, space, matter, our normal consciousness is just an illusion. But if all that is gone - there is still  the consciousness that you exist, that you are "I am". And that is God. And God can imagine that he his John Smith or Jennifer MIller - or whoever

 

"I am" is God. This is written in the bible, a book written by wise men to help us be free from suffering. (Not to be understood as a book of history, the "word of God" . Moses asked God what is your name? The answer: my name is  "I am"

 

We experience our world in consciousness. If we are not conscious then there is no world for us.

 

But if we are conscious we experience what we imagine.

Our life, the world is an illusion, the product and experience of our imagination.  

 

If I can experience this than it is true for me. If other people don't experience this - their choice. No impact on my experience. 

 

Their reality is what they imagine, not an absolute reality that exists for everybody

Edited May 3, 2019 by sweatalot

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

I like the philosophy of Neville Goddard. He says God exists. But he/she is not a being outside of us, separated from us. We are not subordinate beings that depend on the mercy of some big Zampanoo.

God is our consciousness, our awareness. He is inside us. He is us.

(In the following I only use "he" for simplicity - but I don't think God - our consciousness of being - has a gender)

 

And God can be experienced in meditation. In  Buddhist or Hindu meditation (or others as well) you experience a feeling that the world, space, matter, our normal consciousness is just an illusion. But if all that is gone - there is still  the consciousness that you exist, that you are "I am". And that is God. And God can imagine that he his John Smith or Jennifer MIller - or whoever

 

"I am" is God. This is written in the bible, a book written by wise men to help us be free from suffering. (Not to be understood as a book of history, the "word of God" . Moses asked God what is your name? The answer: my name is  "I am"

 

We experience our world in consciousness. If we are not conscious then there is no world for us.

 

But if we are conscious we experience what we imagine.

Our life, the world is an illusion, the product and experience of our imagination.  

 

If I can experience this than it is true for me. If other people don't experience this - their choice. No impact on my experience. 

 

Their reality is what they imagine, not an absolute reality that exists for everybody

Just inserting the label "god" for things we already have names for and understanding of (consciousness, us, awareness, love, feelings, the universe, peace, meditation and so on) doesn't change what they are already known to be. While consciousness is certainly the one many will claim is not fully understood, simply calling it "God" is no more an answer than calling it "Yoda". Both are equally absurd. Even if something is totally not understood, simply calling it "God" is unacceptable. The "god of the gaps" argument explains NOTHING and gets us no closer to an accurate, truthful answer. (Neither does Yoda) 

 

Words have meaning and here's the accepted definition of God/god: 

God 

1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.

2. god

(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.

 

I'm not saying people don't experience things they can't explain and think extraordinary, but one's lack of understanding or simply saying something is/was extraordinary doesn't make them so, nor even make them real. Any individual's personal experience is meaningless to everyone else. My personal experience proves nothing to all of you. Your personal experience proves nothing to us. It's not a choice when others don't share and/or experience your personal event. There are SO many factors, conditions and stimuli that can lead to an hallucination, illusion, delusion, vivid dream, vision, etc. Still there are no reasons to call these occurrences god, spirit or supernatural. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Skeptic7

[notmyself]

2 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

I'm not saying people don't experience things they can't explain and think extraordinary, but one's lack of understanding or simply saying something is/was extraordinary doesn't make them so, nor even make them real. Any individual's personal experience is meaningless to everyone else. My personal experience proves nothing to all of you. Your personal experience proves nothing to us. It's not a choice when others don't share and/or experience your personal event. There are SO many factors, conditions and stimuli that can lead to an hallucination, illusion, delusion, vivid dream, vision, etc. Still there are no reasons to call these occurrences god, spirit or supernatural. 

 

Argument from ignorance no less....

 

From Wiki so FTA (free to air)

 

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence") is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

I've also heard it called the 'god did it' argument where until such time as proved otherwise, a god, spirit such as ghost or other supernatural entities is the default position. The god question along with all the other facets of the same untruth are riddled with logical fallacies. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sunmaster]

On 5/3/2019 at 11:15 AM, transam said:

If there is a "God" then there should not be a zillion religions on Earth that all seem to think theirs is the only "God", of which some want to kill off the other cos they think they are wrong with their "God"....

This reminds me of an analogy I've read a long time ago...

 

There was a big elephant and 4 blind men around it.

Each man tried to describe this animal to the others.

The first, touching the trunk "This animal is like a big snake!"

The second, touching an ear "Nonsense, it's like a big fleshy wing"

The third, touching a leg, "What are you talking about, it's like a large tree".

The fourth, touching the tail "You are all wrong, it's small and fuzzy".

 

*Then there was another blind guy, sitting lazily on a bench, listening to the other 4. How can the same animal be 4 different things?, he asks himself. It's impossible, not logical and therefore simply claims "How can you be so stupid? There is no animal at all. It's all in your head!".

 

(*) the last bit is my addition ????????

[StreetCowboy]

58 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

This reminds me of an analogy I've read a long time ago...

 

There was a big elephant and 4 blind men around it.

Each man tried to describe this animal to the others.

The first, touching the trunk "This animal is like a big snake!"

The second, touching an ear "Nonsense, it's like a big fleshy wing"

The third, touching a leg, "What are you talking about, it's like a large tree".

The fourth, touching the tail "You are all wrong, it's small and fuzzy".

 

*Then there was another blind guy, sitting lazily on a bench, listening to the other 4. How can the same animal be 4 different things?, he asks himself. It's impossible, not logical and therefore simply claims "How can you be so stupid? There is no animal at all. It's all in your head!".

 

(*) the last bit is my addition ????????

Doesn’t matter what it looks like, you have to eat it one bite at a time

[StreetCowboy]

If I was agnostic, I’d be sure to be a good Christian, because it’s not a lot of wasted effort, but eternal damnation might be very arduous

[notmyself]

8 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

This reminds me of an analogy I've read a long time ago...

 

There was a big elephant and 4 blind men around it.

Each man tried to describe this animal to the others.

The first, touching the trunk "This animal is like a big snake!"

The second, touching an ear "Nonsense, it's like a big fleshy wing"

The third, touching a leg, "What are you talking about, it's like a large tree".

The fourth, touching the tail "You are all wrong, it's small and fuzzy".

 

*Then there was another blind guy, sitting lazily on a bench, listening to the other 4. How can the same animal be 4 different things?, he asks himself. It's impossible, not logical and therefore simply claims "How can you be so stupid? There is no animal at all. It's all in your head!".

 

(*) the last bit is my addition ????????

 

Aye. And another guy trying to figure out how ANY above came to a conclusion. As a species we accept even a junk answer over not having one. 

 

 

 

[sweatalot]

1 hour ago, notmyself said:

 

Aye. And another guy trying to figure out how ANY above came to a conclusion. As a species we accept even a junk answer over not having one. 

 

 

 

talking about your answers?

[notmyself]

6 minutes ago, sweatalot said:

talking about your answers?

 

I read a book once, it was green.

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, notmyself said:

 

I read a book once, it was green.

So, as a species , should we accept your junk answer ?

[ballpoint]

12 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

This reminds me of an analogy I've read a long time ago...

 

There was a big elephant and 4 blind men around it.

Each man tried to describe this animal to the others.

The first, touching the trunk "This animal is like a big snake!"

The second, touching an ear "Nonsense, it's like a big fleshy wing"

The third, touching a leg, "What are you talking about, it's like a large tree".

The fourth, touching the tail "You are all wrong, it's small and fuzzy".

 

*Then there was another blind guy, sitting lazily on a bench, listening to the other 4. How can the same animal be 4 different things?, he asks himself. It's impossible, not logical and therefore simply claims "How can you be so stupid? There is no animal at all. It's all in your head!".

 

(*) the last bit is my addition ????????

And a smarter blind guy started asking questions, and asked each of the others to swap positions and tell him again what they felt, and so discovered that this mystical creature was in fact just an elephant.

 

Religion: "Touching" one part, concocting a story around it and blindly refusing to change one's views on that story, including fighting anyone who describes "touching" a different part.

Science: Gathering all the information, performing experiments and coming up with a theory that satisfies them.  And, should further evidence present itself, adjusting, or even totally changing, that theory if need be.

 

 

 

[mauGR1]

35 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

And a smarter blind guy started asking questions, and asked each of the others to swap positions and tell him again what they felt, and so discovered that this mystical creature was in fact just an elephant.

 

Religion: "Touching" one part, concocting a story around it and blindly refusing to change one's views on that story, including fighting anyone who describes "touching" a different part.

Science: Gathering all the information, performing experiments and coming up with a theory that satisfies them.  And, should further evidence present itself, adjusting, or even totally changing, that theory if need be.

 

 

 

Does that mean that you can change your mind about the non-existence of God ?

[ballpoint]

Just now, mauGR1 said:

Does that mean that you can change your mind about the non-existence of God ?

I was going to say yes, of course if god came down and started performing miracles for the masses, then it would be rather hard to deny his non-existence.  But, then again, if I could go back to ancient times and start waving my mobile phone around, shoot a few bad guys, roar about on my motorbike, and tell everyone I was a god, then I think most would believe me - even a plastic cigarette lighter would be enough to convince most.  It would take more than that to convince us these days, but it would still be rather hard to tell the difference between a real god and an alien from a far more advanced civilisation - not that I'm claiming that's how religion got started, so further proof would be required.  Further more, if a believer was to try and prove the existence of their god, it's not the response of the atheists they should be worried about, but that of the multitude of believers of competing religions.  If faced with incontrovertible proof, a scientific atheist will incorporate that into his revised understanding of the universe, but how many Muslims, Jews and Christians will admit to being wrong should the menagerie of Hindu gods suddenly manifest themselves?  

 

On the other side of the coin, one by one the assertions of the Christian church - to take just one of that multitude, have been eroded away and proved to be false.  Flat earth?  Earth created 6,000 - 10,000 years ago?  Sun, stars and planets orbiting the earth?  All now known to be false.  Even evolution, for which there is undeniable proof of its taking place via natural selection in isolated populations, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and the fossil record, is still doubted by many because it doesn't fit with their beliefs, which themselves are founded on no evidence at all.  As monotheists have chipped away at the set of ancient gods, so science is chipping away at the single remaining Western one.  A point that Christopher Hitchens put so well (as he so often did).  “From a plurality of prime movers, the monotheists have bargained it down to a single one. They are getting ever nearer to the true, round figure.”

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

I was going to say yes, of course if god came down and started performing miracles for the masses, then it would be rather hard to deny his non-existence.  But, then again, if I could go back to ancient times and start waving my mobile phone around, shoot a few bad guys, roar about on my motorbike, and tell everyone I was a god, then I think most would believe me - even a plastic cigarette lighter would be enough to convince most.  It would take more than that to convince us these days, but it would still be rather hard to tell the difference between a real god and an alien from a far more advanced civilisation - not that I'm claiming that's how religion got started, so further proof would be required.  Further more, if a believer was to try and prove the existence of their god, it's not the response of the atheists they should be worried about, but that of the multitude of believers of competing religions.  If faced with incontrovertible proof, a scientific atheist will incorporate that into his revised understanding of the universe, but how many Muslims, Jews and Christians will admit to being wrong should the menagerie of Hindu gods suddenly manifest themselves?  

 

On the other side of the coin, one by one the assertions of the Christian church - to take just one of that multitude, have been eroded away and proved to be false.  Flat earth?  Earth created 6,000 - 10,000 years ago?  Sun, stars and planets orbiting the earth?  All now known to be false.  Even evolution, for which there is undeniable proof of its taking place via natural selection in isolated populations, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and the fossil record, is still doubted by many because it doesn't fit with their beliefs, which themselves are founded on no evidence at all.  As monotheists have chipped away at the set of ancient gods, so science is chipping away at the single remaining Western one.  A point that Christopher Hitchens put so well (as he so often did).  “From a plurality of prime movers, the monotheists have bargained it down to a single one. They are getting ever nearer to the true, round figure.”

Although a bit confusing post, i like the open-mindedness .

... But, if God was just another name of "existence", would you deny it ?

[transam]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

Although a bit confusing post, i like the open-mindedness .

... But, if God was just another name of "existence", would you deny it ?

"God" is a man made name...God, "Existence" has never been proven...Just another of "Mans" stuff..

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, transam said:

"God" is a man made name...God, "Existence" has never been proven...Just another of "Mans" stuff..

Exactly like all the other names.

...Existence has never been proven... Really.. ?

So, are you saying that you don't exist ? Come on..

[transam]

6 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Exactly like all the other names.

...Existence has never been proven... Really.. ?

So, are you saying that you don't exist ? Come on..

I exist because I was born...Proven.....Prove to me that your "God" exists or ever has...I have a birth certificate, I was present...I existed......Show me your "God" exists or existed...

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, transam said:

I exist because I was born...Proven.....Prove to me that your "God" exists or ever has...I have a birth certificate, I was present...I existed......Show me your "God" exists or existed...

Why should i show you "my god" ?

Pls go back and read my post about existence.

[Sunmaster]

Some food for thought for the hardcore skeptics. An article about out-of-body and near death experiences from a scientific point of view:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largest-ever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-near-death-experiences-9780195.html

 

 

[transam]

Just now, Sunmaster said:

Some food for thought for the hardcore skeptics. An article about out-of-body and near death experiences from a scientific point of view:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largest-ever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-near-death-experiences-9780195.html

 

 

I dream ever night.....????....In colour too...

[ThaiBunny]

2 minutes ago, transam said:

I dream ever night.....????....In colour too...

I dream about World War II in colour too - and I know it was fought in black and white, I've seen the newsreels

[Nemises]

Many people have died and been bought to life. None (to my knowledge) ever saw much on the “other side”.
Keep believing. Maybe you’ll be the first...

[ivor bigun]

God,so many people commenting,when i started the thread i never realized how far it would run but its fascinating reading, i wonder do those guys who strap a suicide vest on really believe they will get 72 virgins, also its funny why the preachers who tell them they will meet old Mo and get them never do it,would have thought they would love to meet him.

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