Why BELIEVE, shouldn't we KNOW?

[razeontherock]

There is a difference between understanding and acceptance:

"w/o faith it is impossible to please God."

 

[pocaracas]

There is a difference between understanding and acceptance:

"w/o faith it is impossible to please God."

Why?
I have no faith, yet I'm willing to accept a god exists, but I'll require some really awesome display of godly power.... no subjective stuff, no Hollywood stuff, no illusions. Just god as christians and other religions claim it to be: all-powerfull.

 

[razeontherock]

If your question is why is it impossible to please God w/o Faith, that is one question I can't even attempt to answer. I can point out that the Bible makes no claim of any "all powerful," though. Most High, Most Powerful, yes. It does do us well to align our thoughts to those things we can know.

 

[pocaracas]

Interesting.... I didn't know that.
No "all powerful" at all?
Just a measly "very powerful" being?.... well then, that would fit well with the alien "god" theory, don't you think so?

 

[elman]

Why?
I have no faith, yet I'm willing to accept a god exists, but I'll require some really awesome display of godly power.... no subjective stuff, no Hollywood stuff, no illusions. Just god as christians and other religions claim it to be: all-powerfull.

Demanding a sign is futile. You have no position to make demands. I believe the existence of God cannot be proven. I speculate things are set up this way because if we knew we were in the presence of the kind of power that created all that we see, we would not obey such a Creature out of love or wanting to do the correct thing but simply out of fear and awe of His power.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

I don't understand why should a god require that I believe it exists just so I can then be convinced of it.

I'm not sure it's even in the power of the ego to choose to believe or not. God is the only actor. The only controller. We only deal with what we are given. When the time is ripe God gives people useful beliefs that mature into actual experience and knowledge (which as I said surpass anything that you could formulate in words to begin with). At least that is how I view things. I don't make myself out to be some sort of expert or anything so take that for whatever it's worth

 

[razeontherock]

Just a measly "very powerful" being?.... well then, that would fit well with the alien "god" theory, don't you think so?

The word 'measly' does not fit here. I do find it odd that the scientific community will embrace the idea of ET planting life here, but they absolutely will not recognize that G-d Himself is extra-terrestrial, more than a bit unidentified, and their theory points to what we've been saying all along ...

But we still have this distinction between created and Creator

 

[lucaspa]

oi_antz, I've seen your signature. FYI, most Christians are evolutionists. People don't have "faith" in evolution. We accept evolution because of the data. For Christians, we accept evolution because of what God clearly tells us in His Creation.

 

[lucaspa]

No "all powerful" at all?
Just a measly "very powerful" being?.... well then, that would fit well with the alien "god" theory, don't you think so?

Not so "measly". God doesn't have to be omnipotent (all-powerful) to be God. God has to be powerful enough to create a universe, which no alien can do.

Think of it this way: any "alien" species exists in spacetime. Therefore they are incapable of creating spacetime.

 

[lucaspa]

If we go by Einstein, space and time are part of the Universe. The concept of outside of the Universe doesn't make sense in a space-time geometry sense.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. We exist in a particular spacetime. Yes, our perception is limited to that spacetime, but it also allows an "outside" spacetime. Think of theories of multiverse. They all talk about "outside the universe" as making sense. So science betrays you.

And the real difficulty is that time is here as well. Before the Universe also doesn't make sense.

Here, like with "space", we are limited to our language and perception. But physicists are talking about "before" the Big Bang. Martin Bojowald does so. A lot. I can PM you a copy of his Scientific American article if you like. Or google him.

Why does there have to be a creator? Why does it have to be a someone?

I did a thread here at CF on the scientific hypotheses on the origin of the universe: First Cause - Christian Forums One of the 5 hypotheses is "God created". Christians, of course, believe this is correct, but the evidence for that comes from outside science. But before you say anything, a lot of evidence and information we use in our day-to-day lives comes from outside science. Evidence and information we accept as true.

From the pov of science, there doesn't "have to be" a creator. One of the hypotheses (No Boundary) doesn't have the universe created at all. It just is. Nor does the creator have to be God. 3 of the hypotheses have the creator be something other than God.

Science's easiest reply to this is that, probably, the Universe has always been here.

Actually, that one (originally made by Aristotle) has been refuted. It is wrong. All you have to do is look at the night sky. It is dark. If the universe has always been here, the night sky would be white.

Maybe, there was something before the big bang; maybe there were several big bangs. And, with each new bang, all information of the Universe prior to it is wiped out.

There cannot have been a series of bangs followed by big crunches; the Second Law of Thermodynamics prohibits that. Your last sentence bears a little resemblance to ekpyrotic (it's in the list). There is no empirical support for ekpyrotic and it is in trouble. Ekpyrotic is based on String Theory, and String Theory is in empirical trouble.

I find this a little easier to accept than some being did it. Where did your being come from? Was it created or did it evolve, somehow? Is there only one? Why not more?

1. What you personally find "easier to accept" is irrelevant. The universe is what it is, not what you personally would like it to be. That's one of the major principles of science.
2. The questions are irrelevant and your use of them is bad science and reasoning. Whenever we answer a question, several new questions pop up out of the answer. We can't use those new questions to deny possible answers. Not only is it logically fallacious (a form of Appeal to Consequences), but if we used it science would stop. We have the question: "What is the origin of the universe?" If (as Christians believe) the answer is "God created it", then and only then do you start asking the questions you did. The answers, of course, are "We don't know." But our ignorance of those answers in no way affects whether God created the universe.

And where do all the other religions fit there? specially those that came before christianity, before jews, before the monotheism.

No one is sure. I personally think they are 1) made up and/or 2) early attempts to interpret communication by God. How we view deity is dependent on our human limitations. We can see this in the OT. In the oldest parts of the OT, Yahweh is the specific, partisan god of Israel. Other gods exist, for the other nations. But Yahweh is Israel's deity. Later, as human mature both emotionally and intellectually, Yahweh is seen as the only God and the God of everyone.

 

[lucaspa]

Very well, I'll grant you that.
People have experiences of the divine. Always very subjective, always people who already had a prior concept of this dinivity and somehow interpreted those experiences as divine.... what if they're all wrong?

I see you are moving the goalposts. Your original claim was that experience of deity only happened in the past. Nice to see you have abandoned that claim. Now you are attacking the validity of personal experience of deity. So let's look at your objections a bit:

Subjective only in the sense that they happen within a person. But intersubjective in that the experiences of the different people are very similar. Not alwayspeople who had a prior concept of this divinity. The experience has also happened to atheists. Also, if you read the summary, you would see that very often deity does not match their "prior concept of this divinity".

Could they all be wrong? It's a possibility. That's one reason why theism is a faith.

You said it yourself, lots of people discount such experiences here

Yes, but I didn't say the rejection was valid, did I? In fact, I said the opposite: they are wrong to reject the experience.

I always thought it was more like 20% of humanity that's atheist, but it doesn't matter for the discussion.

Some people are more sensitive to emotion than others. Some people are more indoctrinated during their childhood than others. I think I've written somewhere (but I'll grant you didn't read the whole thread.. I wouldn't have!), but I'll write it again. Evolution has equipped us to have the ability to believe others, while we're young and ignorant. And kids believe adults completely.

LOL! You've never had kids, have you! No, kids do not believe adults completely. They do trust their parents, but they can detect fraud and their logic is outstanding. If there is any logical flaw in an argument, they will find it immediately. And no, they don't "stick with the ideas given them by adults". Certainly not thru adulthood. C'mon, you have all those testimonials of people raised in Christian households (like Dawkins) who are now atheists. That refutes this argument right off the bat!

This idea that people are theists because of early indoctrination is one of the major dogmas of atheism. You can see the purpose it serves for atheism: it explains why atheists are in a minority. Most people are indoctrinated and only those smart atheists figure it out. Not only is this argument tremendously arrogant and condescending, it is refuted by the evidence.

I'd wager that 100% of all believers acquired the concept of god during such a young age.

How much did you bet? Please, let it be a lot, because you are wrong. There are many examples of people being raised in atheist households, were atheists, and who had personal experience of deity that made them change their minds. CS Lewis is a famous example.

mainly through those experiences which their minds interpreted by using that definition that had been implanted in them a long time ago.

You really should have read that summary before you wrote this.

It's such a problem of interpretation that those experiences can just as much justify belief in the christian god, as in the buddhist philosophy, or the Egyptian classical gods.

Actually, neither. Buddhism wouldn't have such an active deity as these people experience. The Egyptian gods would not have the boundless love and compassion. But the experiences would be consistent with all the Abrahamic religions plus a couple of other monotheisms I can think of.

That's when we use some common sense: if it were today, discounting technology, would such feats be possible? I have serious doubts about the elephants going through the Alps, but they could have traveled by ship and made it to look as tough the went through the Alps...

Hannibal did not have the ships available and the authors put the first siting of the elephants before Hannibal's army had made contact with the coast. So there goes that hypothesis.

I have to warn you about "common sense". In a conflict between evidence and "common sense", common sense loses. Every time. All you need do is look at quantum mechanics.

I did mention all the other elements there, but you chose to keep it out of the quote...

The problem is that you made hydrgogen and helium the most abundant elements on earth. As hydrogen and helium.

Indeed, you're right, 99.9999999999999% and then some more of the Universe is made up of Hydrogen and Helium.

Your "science" is wrong again. The abundance of hydrogen and helium today is 98%. You are only off by a factor of 10 trillion or so.

yes, you can make this claim only because no direct evidence supports it... nor disproves it.

Well, that's how scientific hypotheses always start out. So this isn't

I can also claim that a thousand dimensional being bonded with another such being and their union originated our 4D universe. This has as much evidence as your explanation....

Moving the goalposts again, I see. Your original claim was that the existence prohibited a scientific hypothesis of deity. I am simply saying that, no, hypothesizing creation by deity is not unscientific. Remember, all I claimed was "But the existence of the universe is one of 2 areas where it is permissible to hypothesize direct action by God. Why does the universe exist? Because God created it (by the Big Bang)."

Now, your hypothesis is refuted because you can't have that number of dimensions. "Dimensions" have physical properties that have consequences. Nice try.

Why would your version be the correct one?

Because of the evidence from outside science. What I am saying is that hypothesis is permissible by science.

No problem... And if we just remove god from the equation, it still holds: life came about through simple chemistry, no god required!

Sorry, you can't say "no god required" by science. Here you are going beyond what science can tell you. Ever hear of Methodological Naturalism (Materialism)?

Please teach me. I was never a very good biology student.

You said "
Life sparked and evolved. Cells gathered to make larger, more resilient organisms; these changed their appearance in order to adapt to the environment, dinosaurs came and went, just as lots of other animal species. Some survived, the better equipped to handle the ever-changing environment. Eventually, hominids came by and one branch led to modern humans."

You are attributing chosen actions to individuals: "these changed their appearance in order to adapt to the environment". Evolution happens to populations, not individuals. Nor is their any action or choice on the part of individuals. Individuals die with the same alleles they were born with. So, organisms do not "change their appearance". Instead, populations change from generation to generation as natural selection works on the population. I suggest you start with the book What Evolution IS by Ernst Mayr.

I didn't postulate a control freak god... the Old Testament did that for me, and that is the god they teach kids... but they leave out some of the nastier bits, like if you're found stealing, you own father should stone you to death... so said god.

Remember, you said God, in order to exist, must control our thoughts so humans never get anything wrong about God. The OT does not portray the control freak you require.

What you are talking about now is some of the laws in the OT. That's different. Yes, compared to what we do now, some of those laws are nasty. But compared to what the laws in the neighboring states were then, these are liberal. You can't take them out of historical or social context. If humans have free will, then God is limited to what He can teach us. Limited by us. It's what we can understand and accept. For that time and place, God gave them the most liberal laws they were capable of accepting. BTW, it's not the father that stones an unruly child, but the rest of the community. You not only need to improve your accuracy of science, but your accuracy of what is stated in the Bible. If you don't, all you do is create strawmen.

And lots and lots of people went the other way around. Does that mean you premise is also false?

Nope. Because your premise is that belief in deity comes only from indoctrination. You are saying that people went from being theists to being atheists. True, but you haven't told us why this happened. Without the why, you haven't tested any hyppothesis (what you are miscalling "premise")

Two people that show exactly what I pointed out at the beginning of this post. They already had the concept of god built into them.... then they had experiences of something they could only interpret as godly... maybe they weren't...

LOL! You just denied a major concept of atheism: humans can employ critical thinking! You also just destroyed that humans are at all creative! You also destroyed science. You are saying that people can only interpret experiences into concepts they already have. Uncritically. You saying that just because people know about a concept, that they will automatically interpret an experience as that concept? If this is the case, then science is dead; we can never accurately test reality because we will interpret the data in terms of concepts we have heard about regardless of whether the data (experience) fits those concepts or not! Then Darwin could never have discovered evolution by natural selection. After all, Darwin had the concept of Special Creation "built into him", so he should have interpreted all his data (experience) as Special Creation! According to you. That Darwin did not is one of millions of pieces of evidence refuting this rationalization you have put forth.



You can also refute this by just looking at the food and music you like. Think of a food and type of music you don't like. You have heard that this food tastes good and that the type of music is pleasant. Then you have experience of the food and music. Just because you have heard of something doesn't mean you will interpret the experience that way. In fact, you didn't.

In CS Lewis' case, he tried to interpret the experience as anything but deity. He, at one point, even considered he was going insane rather than interpret the experience as from God. So they did have means of interpreting the experience "other than godly". In fact, they tried.

If people were as susceptible to suggestion as you say, then no one could be an atheist today. Any atheist would interpret experience as coming from God, because they "had the concept of god built into them".

And there I thought I had stumbled into something no one in thousands of years had thought about....

Or were hoping we wouldn't recognize the deception?

I did read it all, but... I was expecting at least one account.... no, just generalities..

This is a summary. But even here you are getting some generalities. And no, it doesn't fit with what you said above. Apparently you were not reading it closely:

" Others on the contrary battered the gates of heaven .. with very sceptical demands for answers, IF such a heaven existed. Their uncompromising intellectuality led them to try to pin God to the wall in ways that might be expected to elicit a lightning bolt rather than blessing. Their requirements for evidence and proofs were seldom met exactly as specified, but there was a moment in the process when they realized to their astonishment that they were wrestling with a real being who couldn't be contained in human descriptions or standards, not a concept or an abstraction. This God was something out of their control, something not fashioned in the image they had formed in their mind "

" "My relationship with God has been by far and away the most demanding relationship in my life." " Doesn't sound like the standard concept of God, does it?

" 'If I didn't absolutely know this is the only game in town, I'd sure as hell get out of it!' " Not someone who is fitting things into something he heard about is going to say. It's something someone facing a hard reality that is often unpleasant is going to say.

 

[porlino87]

I believe that having faith is what separates us human animals from all the rest of the animals. The ability to have faith is indicative of our spiritual side and faith feeds the soul to help it grow and understand the will of God. An exorcise in faith like saying grace over ones food, builds spiritual muscles to help cope with everyday life with it's pain and struggles.

I'm new to religion in general. I wasn't brought up near it, nor was I educated in any of it. I want to believe in god, but I don't have any solid evidence, or proof! I don't like the concept of believing in God just because it makes life easiyer. help!

 

[paul becke]

Ever since I was born, people have told me that there exists this being of such ultimate power, knowledge and love that he can do whatever he wishes, he can know what we think, he can act upon the sub-microscopic world and perform magic, the real kind!
This being then created this universe we live in.... the galaxies, the stars, the planets, the moons. On this particular planet, he chose to bestow the greatest gift: life.
Dinosaurs and other long extinct animals apart, he planted humanity here.... with the strange purpose of joining him... after death.

These first people had, naturally, knowledge of such being. He was their instructor. They then went on to pass this knowledge to their offspring, who then passed it to their offspring... and so on and so forth until today.
So, when we "believe", we are actually believing what these people have been telling us.
Why can't that being just let all of us know that he is there and waiting for him? Why does he rely on measly humans to carry on his original ideas and teachings? I mean, he should know the old saying: he who tells a tale, adds a tail.
How can anyone guarantee that what happened so long ago was really what people now claim?


Lets look at this from the other side.
What do we now know?
We know we are here, on this planet, on this solar system, on this galaxy, on this Universe. We know the Universe is vast and its mass is similar to what can be found here: hydrogen, helium and the other elements of our periodic table, but mainly those two which are present in stars.
We know that, on this planet, life sparked. How exactly? We don't know. Some people believe in some theories, other believe in other theories and others just plainly say: I don't know.
Life sparked and evolved. Cells gathered to make larger, more resilient organisms; these changed their appearance in order to adapt to the environment, dinosaurs came and went, just as lots of other animal species. Some survived, the better equipped to handle the ever-changing environment. Eventually, hominids came by and one branch led to modern humans.
It is safe to claim that, originally, these hominids had no notion, no concept of divinity. At some stage, then, they must have acquired it. How? I see two options:
1 - a divinity (or more than one?) actually appeared to them and taught them all they needed about the non-corporeal(spirit) world.
2 - they made it up, perhaps due to perplexity before such events as death, fire, thunder, rain, sun, etc.

Again, in case my guess Number 1 is right, why would this divinity only make it self known to the first people and not to every single one? why would such a being rely on humans to carry that message? Knowing, beforehand, that they would most likely foul it up and then segregate and generate conflicts among them... why?

On the other hand, if my guess Number 2 is correct, it all makes perfect sense. No divinity exists. People simply believe it does because some came up with the concept and others picked it up. When they realized the power such a concept could convey over simple and ignorant people, they managed to spread it make people believe and believe and believe. Never knowing.

I'm sorry for the wall of text. It's an idea I've been having inside for a while and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

On the topic of light and matter, even Feynman, who was an atheist, told his students we know nothing:

"What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does."

Yet he was, as he did on other occasions, reiterating what Einstein, Planck and Bohr had stated.

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." - Max Planck

"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature..." - - Niels Bohr.

Yet, thanks largely to our corporate behemoths, and their ever-increasing power over academe, materialism is the prevailing paradigm! Amazing, isn't it? The more eminent scientists know that the paradoxes at the extremities of physics must simply be accepted as mysteries, no less imponderable than those of Christianity, and used as springboards to further discoveries.

Meanwhile, those Einstein despairingly referred to as "naive realists" and whom, rather uncharitably, the more recent Nobel laureate Watson, an atheist, himself, simply called "fools", continue to insist that everything will one day be understood by scientists.

"Why can't that being just let all of us know that he is there and waiting for him? Why does he rely on measly humans to carry on his original ideas and teachings?"

God is interested in our hearts, not our heads. Mengele would have had a high level of worldly intelligence. But the deepest truths are spiritual and our acceptance or rejection of them tells God what we are like as individuals, since we end up believing what we want to believe. In that sense, both religion and atheism are "wishful thinking". It doesn't mean they are both wrong. One is right, obviously.

The fact is, in a certain sense and in varying degrees, Christians have a hot-line to God, just as per the atheist jibe. Our hearts (the seat of wisdom) are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, who coordinates the strands of our intelligence. We can't prove it in a laboratory or anywhere else, because only matter in its grosser forms, is accessible to the superficial, rational intelligence.

The Spirit is the realm of what Aldous Huxley, a Vedantist, called the unitive intelligence, which is not accessible via book-learning, but via undertaking certain commitments concerning our attitude and behaviour. So, there is two-way communication going on all the time between God and his believers, who do not have to rely entirely on scripture and tradition. Although where they do, and it is necessary to a significant degree, it can only be beneficial in the light of the Holy Spirit.

Incidentally, Planck pointed out that there are no scientific laws, as such, since, because God established the laws of science at a certain juncture, does not mean that He is under any obligation not to change them.

 

[pocaracas]

Demanding a sign is futile. You have no position to make demands. I believe the existence of God cannot be proven. I speculate things are set up this way because if we knew we were in the presence of the kind of power that created all that we see, we would not obey such a Creature out of love or wanting to do the correct thing but simply out of fear and awe of His power.

I didn't demand anything, I required. There's a slight difference in tone.
Plus, isn't that obeying out of fear the whole purpose of the OT?

 

[pocaracas]

I'm not sure it's even in the power of the ego to choose to believe or not. God is the only actor. The only controller. We only deal with what we are given. When the time is ripe God gives people useful beliefs that mature into actual experience and knowledge

Indeed, belief just happens, apparently, and it can't be justified.
I guess that's one of the reasons I don't think I'll ever believe.... in the existence of a divinity.

The word 'measly' does not fit here. I do find it odd that the scientific community will embrace the idea of ET planting life here, but they absolutely will not recognize that G-d Himself is extra-terrestrial, more than a bit unidentified, and their theory points to what we've been saying all along ...

But we still have this distinction between created and Creator

I was going to reply what lucaspa said just below!!

Not so "measly". God doesn't have to be omnipotent (all-powerful) to be God. God has to be powerful enough to create a universe, which no alien can do.

Think of it this way: any "alien" species exists in spacetime. Therefore they are incapable of creating spacetime.

tadá!

There's a fundamental difference between acknowledging that god created life on Earth or that life was carried here by aliens..
Also, there is a huge difference between believing that a being of great power exists (is the spirit realm) and aliens of great power exist (in the physical realm).

 

[pocaracas]

Actually, it makes perfect sense. We exist in a particular spacetime. Yes, our perception is limited to that spacetime, but it also allows an "outside" spacetime. Think of theories of multiverse. They all talk about "outside the universe" as making sense. So science betrays you.

I see... you're right there... It fits with something I said further below on your post

Here, like with "space", we are limited to our language and perception. But physicists are talking about "before" the Big Bang. Martin Bojowald does so. A lot. I can PM you a copy of his Scientific American article if you like. Or google him.

So why does he talk about that "before"?
Big bang - big crunch - big bang... and so on...
A theory you claimed has been trashed.
Last I heard, the prospect that there is much more dark matter than previously thought untrashed that theory.
So, yes, it is possible to have a before the big bang, but, at least, on the basis of the "universe was always there".

Actually, that one (originally made by Aristotle) has been refuted. It is wrong. All you have to do is look at the night sky. It is dark. If the universe has always been here, the night sky would be white.

Did you not pay attention to the big crunch detail?

There cannot have been a series of bangs followed by big crunches; the Second Law of Thermodynamics prohibits that. Your last sentence bears a little resemblance to ekpyrotic (it's in the list). There is no empirical support for ekpyrotic and it is in trouble. Ekpyrotic is based on String Theory, and String Theory is in empirical trouble.

On the singularity, the known laws of physics tend to get a little bent over to the point of cracking. So I wouldn't count on the second law of thermodynamics to remain true then.

1. What you personally find "easier to accept" is irrelevant. The universe is what it is, not what you personally would like it to be. That's one of the major principles of science.

Indeed it is. Nice of you to accept it!

2. The questions are irrelevant and your use of them is bad science and reasoning. Whenever we answer a question, several new questions pop up out of the answer. We can't use those new questions to deny possible answers. Not only is it logically fallacious (a form of Appeal to Consequences), but if we used it science would stop. We have the question: "What is the origin of the universe?" If (as Christians believe) the answer is "God created it", then and only then do you start asking the questions you did. The answers, of course, are "We don't know." But our ignorance of those answers in no way affects whether God created the universe.

Since I'm here on this forum, I'm assuming everyone here already has the certainty of that first answer "God created it".... That's why I made those other questions.

No one is sure. I personally think they are 1) made up and/or 2) early attempts to interpret communication by God.

The other religions are "made up"?
Put yourself on the shoes of one of them, say... Hindus: from their pov then, all other religions are "made up". Then take a step further away and you get atheists: all religions are "made up".
First argument is a bit self-destructive, so I'll assume you didn't want to go there.

The second had a bit more text to it:

How we view deity is dependent on our human limitations. We can see this in the OT. In the oldest parts of the OT, Yahweh is the specific, partisan god of Israel. Other gods exist, for the other nations. But Yahweh is Israel's deity. Later, as human mature both emotionally and intellectually, Yahweh is seen as the only God and the God of everyone.

Human limitations.
This Yahweh was the god of the jews, the concept spread bit and was fortunate to have been adopted by the roman empire which forced it onto the conquered peoples, or most of Europe. On the other side, it was picked up by a "prophet"... one which didn't know or care for J.C., giving rise to the muslims and so south Asia and North Africa received the same god.
This was, as you said somewhere, a better god than the ones these people had, so it was quickly adopted... with some help from authorities in some places...
Then the contradictions appeared and the concept had to evolve, had to become more abstract, much less tangible... much easier to imprint on someone, because "there is no argument against its non-existence, hence it must be true".

 

[s_s]

I'm new to religion in general. I wasn't brought up near it, nor was I educated in any of it. I want to believe in god, but I don't have any solid evidence, or proof! I don't like the concept of believing in God just because it makes life easiyer. help!

The evidence is all around you! Believing in God because it's easier is both true, and false. It is true in that the Bible, and faith in God accounts for all the problems that science can't answer; and false in that if (and hopefully, when) you become saved, it is much harder than a conventional secular life. It is WORTH IT though!

If you tell what it is that is confusing you, or where specifically you need some proof, this will help you get an answer to remove your doubts

 

[pocaracas]

I see you are moving the goalposts. Your original claim was that experience of deity only happened in the past. Nice to see you have abandoned that claim. Now you are attacking the validity of personal experience of deity. So let's look at your objections a bit:

Someone claimed to have had such experience. I can't disprove it so, I'll just accept it as it is. Subjective experience

Subjective only in the sense that they happen within a person. But intersubjective in that the experiences of the different people are very similar. Not alwayspeople who had a prior concept of this divinity. The experience has also happened to atheists. Also, if you read the summary, you would see that very often deity does not match their "prior concept of this divinity".

Note the difference between "having the concept of divinity" and "being christian (or some other religion)".
The concept is always there, you just have to be born in this society. By the age of 5, at the latest, a child has that concept well known, even if they come from a family of atheists and if they themselves are atheist.

Yes, but I didn't say the rejection was valid, did I? In fact, I said the opposite: they are wrong to reject the experience.

Why? Why are they not wrong when they accept it as divine? How do you know?

LOL! You've never had kids, have you! No, kids do not believe adults completely. They do trust their parents, but they can detect fraud and their logic is outstanding. If there is any logical flaw in an argument, they will find it immediately. And no, they don't "stick with the ideas given them by adults". Certainly not thru adulthood. C'mon, you have all those testimonials of people raised in Christian households (like Dawkins) who are now atheists. That refutes this argument right off the bat!

Yes, kids can find logical flaws in the blink of an eye...
But there aren't many logical things in faith, are there?

Just because some people do become atheists, doesn't mean that there aren't others who keep their faith just because they've gotten used to it.
I'm not saying ALL, I'm saying "some people". Human psychology is a tricky business, there is never a "one size fits all" rule.

This idea that people are theists because of early indoctrination is one of the major dogmas of atheism. You can see the purpose it serves for atheism: it explains why atheists are in a minority. Most people are indoctrinated and only those smart atheists figure it out. Not only is this argument tremendously arrogant and condescending, it is refuted by the evidence.

How much did you bet? Please, let it be a lot, because you are wrong. There are many examples of people being raised in atheist households, were atheists, and who had personal experience of deity that made them change their minds. CS Lewis is a famous example.

I sure hope you see where you mistake a concept of the divine for a belief system.

Actually, neither. Buddhism wouldn't have such an active deity as these people experience. The Egyptian gods would not have the boundless love and compassion. But the experiences would be consistent with all the Abrahamic religions plus a couple of other monotheisms I can think of.

Well then, Buddhists experience something completely different and Egyptians experienced something else for over 4 millennia...
The argument stands: it's a matter of interpretation (considering the experiences are all of similar origin and nature).
Or there are a multitude of gods, or a multitude of experiences compatible with any gods ever devised... remember how all other religions were wrong? Well then, somewhere people have (have had and I assume will continue to have) experiences which are not compatible with the monotheist god of love and compassion, and yet are experiences of the "spirit realm". If all others are wrong, then I'd only ask: what makes your experiences so right?

The problem is that you made hydrgogen and helium the most abundant elements on earth. As hydrogen and helium.

Your "science" is wrong again. The abundance of hydrogen and helium today is 98%. You are only off by a factor of 10 trillion or so.

Yes, well... we all know how astrophysicists get their guesses... pi ~ 3
If there is more dark mater than hydrogen+hellium, there goes that 98% as well.
But this is of no interest to the thread.

Moving the goalposts again, I see. Your original claim was that the existence prohibited a scientific hypothesis of deity. I am simply saying that, no, hypothesizing creation by deity is not unscientific. Remember, all I claimed was "But the existence of the universe is one of 2 areas where it is permissible to hypothesize direct action by God. Why does the universe exist? Because God created it (by the Big Bang)."

And it is permissible why? because no suitable theory ever stood up to any scrutiny.
Some 500 years ago, the same could be said of lightning. We had no decent explanation for the phenomenon, so god did it. Turns out that NO he has nothing to do with lightning. and the same happened for a bunch of other natural phenomena... the god hypothesis just kept loosing ground. The origin of the Universe might be its last stand or not, but, for the moment there it is...
I just extrapolate from previous godly claims which fell.... this too shall probably fall.

Now, your hypothesis is refuted because you can't have that number of dimensions. "Dimensions" have physical properties that have consequences. Nice try.

how what?
This here universe has 4 dimensions, ok. We can't have more around here.. string theory says we can on some ultra-nanoscopic way, but lets forget about that, since you said string theory is going through a bit of bad weather.
On that "outside" of our Universe you so correctly pointed to me earlier, it is conceivable that one can find some sort of Universe where the norm is10, 20, 30, 40, millions of dimensions... mathematically, it is possible (notice, I didn't use physically). Why would you say I can't have those dimensions. If I'm not bound by this Universe, I can have any thing else. There's no proving if it's real or not, but one can dream!

Because of the evidence from outside science. What I am saying is that hypothesis is permissible by science.

Indeed it is.
As I said above, all it takes is a small extrapolation from all the ground the god hypothesis has lost and you get a hypothesis which doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Sorry, you can't say "no god required" by science. Here you are going beyond what science can tell you. Ever hear of Methodological Naturalism (Materialism)?

Science can tell me that god is not required to explain the physical events which happen in this Universe. And if life was simply a chemical event, then no god s required also, since chemistry is a branch of physics (although chemists won't admit it).

You said "
Life sparked and evolved. Cells gathered to make larger, more resilient organisms; these changed their appearance in order to adapt to the environment, dinosaurs came and went, just as lots of other animal species. Some survived, the better equipped to handle the ever-changing environment. Eventually, hominids came by and one branch led to modern humans."

You are attributing chosen actions to individuals: "these changed their appearance in order to adapt to the environment". Evolution happens to populations, not individuals. Nor is their any action or choice on the part of individuals. Individuals die with the same alleles they were born with. So, organisms do not "change their appearance". Instead, populations change from generation to generation as natural selection works on the population. I suggest you start with the book What Evolution IS by Ernst Mayr.

I was just trying to be succint when telling that tale. Of course evolution has been working for thousands of millions of years. There was (and is) no purpose behind it, except survival. Evolution was (and is) not a conscious undertaking. It just happens, again, due to chemistry in some part, due to a changing environment on another part and some other reasons...
But I don't care for how it works. I just care that "no god is required" for it to work.

Remember, you said God, in order to exist, must control our thoughts so humans never get anything wrong about God. The OT does not portray the control freak you require.

I don't remember saying that, but I do remember saying something along those lines, when referring to the people known as "prophets", the ones who wrote the bible.
If the bible is inspired by god and he wouldn't allow errors in it, then he did control those people's minds.

What you are talking about now is some of the laws in the OT. That's different. Yes, compared to what we do now, some of those laws are nasty. But compared to what the laws in the neighboring states were then, these are liberal. You can't take them out of historical or social context. If humans have free will, then God is limited to what He can teach us. Limited by us. It's what we can understand and accept. For that time and place, God gave them the most liberal laws they were capable of accepting. BTW, it's not the father that stones an unruly child, but the rest of the community. You not only need to improve your accuracy of science, but your accuracy of what is stated in the Bible. If you don't, all you do is create strawmen.

You're right... it's the whole town that stones him to death... at the request of the parents?!?!?!
Deuteronomy 21:18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,

O god gave us those rules, or men made such rules as they pleased. God's existence being disputed, I choose the option where men made the rules.

Nope. Because your premise is that belief in deity comes only from indoctrination. You are saying that people went from being theists to being atheists. True, but you haven't told us why this happened. Without the why, you haven't tested any hyppothesis (what you are miscalling "premise")

Actually, you're the one who called it premise first!
Indoctrination plays a large role, yes.
But my claim was a bit different from that. Belief comes from first knowing that there is something we call god and it can be described as such and such. Then, you experience something which sort of fits this description, but fits nowhere else that you're aware of.... so, logically, god exists (for you).

LOL! You just denied a major concept of atheism: humans can employ critical thinking! You also just destroyed that humans are at all creative! You also destroyed science.

I.have.come.to.destroy.everything.
Prepare.to.be.terminated.

You are saying that people can only interpret experiences into concepts they already have. Uncritically. You saying that just because people know about a concept, that they will automatically interpret an experience as that concept? If this is the case, then science is dead; we can never accurately test reality because we will interpret the data in terms of concepts we have heard about regardless of whether the data (experience) fits those concepts or not! Then Darwin could never have discovered evolution by natural selection. After all, Darwin had the concept of Special Creation "built into him", so he should have interpreted all his data (experience) as Special Creation! According to you. That Darwin did not is one of millions of pieces of evidence refuting this rationalization you have put forth.

Actually, the concept of evolution already existed, It just hadn't been applied to the animal kingdom.

In quantum physics, the atom was first described much like a planetary system, nucleus in the middle, electrons in orbits around it. Then the concept was refined to clouds of electrons around the nucleus, the orbitals. Quantum physics was so mathematical at first that this "borrowing of familiar concepts" was required to understand the complete novelty of the thing.

You can also refute this by just looking at the food and music you like. Think of a food and type of music you don't like. You have heard that this food tastes good and that the type of music is pleasant. Then you have experience of the food and music. Just because you have heard of something doesn't mean you will interpret the experience that way. In fact, you didn't.

Sometimes, you do. Expectations can play a major role in how you enjoy something. Consider smoking in that example as well...

In CS Lewis' case, he tried to interpret the experience as anything but deity. He, at one point, even considered he was going insane rather than interpret the experience as from God. So they did have means of interpreting the experience "other than godly". In fact, they tried.

I didn't know about CS Lewis' story. I see he (and you?) fit into the category of "christian apologetics".
So the man was a skeptic and he became convinced of the thing.... I'm a skeptic and I haven't become convinced of the thing.
Some people are convinced by some arguments, others find them insufficient.
Until there is "one argument to bind them all" this will always be the case.

If people were as susceptible to suggestion as you say, then no one could be an atheist today. Any atheist would interpret experience as coming from God, because they "had the concept of god built into them".

Again, I said "some people". Not all.

Or were hoping we wouldn't recognize the deception?

nope, I was being honest. It appears someone beat me to it...

 

[pocaracas]

This is a summary. But even here you are getting some generalities. And no, it doesn't fit with what you said above. Apparently you were not reading it closely:

" Others on the contrary battered the gates of heaven .. with very sceptical demands for answers, IF such a heaven existed. Their uncompromising intellectuality led them to try to pin God to the wall in ways that might be expected to elicit a lightning bolt rather than blessing. Their requirements for evidence and proofs were seldom met exactly as specified, but there was a moment in the process when they realized to their astonishment that they were wrestling with a real being who couldn't be contained in human descriptions or standards, not a concept or an abstraction. This God was something out of their control, something not fashioned in the image they had formed in their mind "

Here goes one of my famous questions: How does whoever wrote this know that?

" "My relationship with God has been by far and away the most demanding relationship in my life." " Doesn't sound like the standard concept of God, does it?

or not the standard relationship with god...

" 'If I didn't absolutely know this is the only game in town, I'd sure as hell get out of it!' "

How did that person get to know that it's the "only game in town"?
Other religions might differ in opinion....

Not someone who is fitting things into something he heard about is going to say. It's something someone facing a hard reality that is often unpleasant is going to say.

Something someone who's indoctrinated would say... a fundamentalist would say that too... and some others...

 

[s_s]

I was just trying to be succint when telling that tale. Of course evolution has been working for thousands of millions of years. There was (and is) no purpose behind it, except survival. Evolution was (and is) not a conscious undertaking. It just happens, again, due to chemistry in some part, due to a changing environment on another part and some other reasons...
But I don't care for how it works. I just care that "no god is required" for it to work.

Could you back this up please? Or explain how evolution has been working for millennia? Because there is no proof of this, and you can't use an unworkable and unprovable idea to claim that an existing and living God does not exist.