Does God Exist?

So, if it doesn't intervene in human events with a spirit of helpfulness and love--what good is it? Besides making money and mind control

by the usual and ever popular hucksters.

 

Making money? Mind control? Are you thinking of humans and how they abused some of their developed belief systems instead of god Itself perhaps?

Well, I thought it is pretty good that we are here. I'm pretty sure I like the freedom we have. If god would physically intervene and correct our supposedly free choices (or those of others that we just happen to hate) I'm not sure if I would regard god more as good.
I don't think you are a selfish person, scratcho, but saying 'if it doesn't actively do good for us/help us, then what good is it?' sounds a bit like if I can't notice that it is actively helping me it can't be good at all. Seems overly rigid to me.

 

Events in life for us "little people" unfold as luck of the draw,IMO. Many good things have happened in my life. And a few bad ones. I'm not asking for help from any god--never have I done so. If something like begging for --whatever--made any sense, or brought any results, I'd be all for it. I just can't see the purpose in something that HAS never, CAN never(IMO) be proven to exist in any real way, given that life is
an absolutely horrifying, degrading, lifelong process for billions of "its" creations. What's inspiring about that?

 

That is indeed a depressing way to look at things. Maybe it is the wrong approach. God created life and all the possibilities (including those for us, but also those for let's say a bear or a bacteria, etc. etc.). All these creatures are doing their thing, having led to complicated systems in nature. What you find beautiful when you look outside is the result of all of that. True, sometimes a person also sees a nasty landscape, does that equates to the good being less good? So, further more: when in these complicated systems in the world where every reaction is based on an action a human happens to stumble on a bear and gets eaten alive that seems nasty to us. It is however good for the bear (at first instance he might get tracked these days as it is regarded an atrocity to be killed by a bear ). Anyway, does the happening of a man that gets eaten alive by a bear takes away from the creation of the world and all the possibilities that are in it? The same counts when a human happens to come across a nasty virus or bacteria. Why would this world with all its amazing possibilities and whatever created it has to be evil/not good just because we can imagine an unrealistic world were such things would not happen?

I'm sorry we're repeating our convo. It is just so hard not to react when I have some thoughts on the matter

 

S'okey-doakey. I'm not as bleak of a person as I come off. I don't go around with a woe is us attitude. I just respond in here to the CERTAINTY

of presentations regarding PRESENTLY ineffable questions regarding existence. The all knowing folks display a sense of hubris, IMO. However---I've

never actually said---there is no god. Because I have no idea how or why we are here. I would NEVER presume such an idea.

I just have to be honest about how I feel after lo, these many decades.

 

That's a good point...

Also, let's assume for a minute the "Gaian Mind" exists. If it's supposed to be regulating in a sense, what does it mean when humans go to the moon or send satellites to Mars. Are we defying the Gaian Mind? Is it channeling through us to encompass other celestial objects?

 

With the example, you are suggesting that good needs to be qualified. Good becomes dependent on perspective. If this is so, how can we ever be certain that good actually exists?

What kind of perspective based silver linings of 'good' do you see in events that are not inherently dependent on circle of life, survival type stuff such as torture or rape?

 

While I agree with you OP, and I also kinda believe that religion may be a construct of your mind, there is no way of knowing. There is literally no way to disprove or prove the existence of a deity (save for said deity appearing before us). This kinda forces everyone, whether they like it or not to be agnostic.

Thats partially why when people ask me about religion I just tell the I dont really give a shit.

 

i would say close but no cegar. we are aware THAT things are happening around us. we can analyze all the inputs from them, and come to fairly reasonable conclusions by doing so. but it is still within our minds that we experience them. its just not a complet either or situation. we do have actual inputs from outside ourselves. but it veries from one person to the next, how much we filter through what other people have told us to expect those inputs to mean. i agree with you, that there really is real universe out there, outside of and beyond ourselves. even beyond our combined understanding of all of us together.

yet it is also true, that our experiencing takes place inside. and there's really no guarantee, of how well that tracks what is really going on.

science can get us past that ego barrier, by using very large samples and having lots of different people collect and observe them in different ways. even that, ultimately tells us only that some things happen more often then others, and that some things happen more often when other things happen first. but it can tell us both of those things to a considerable number of decimal places.

there's definately more then imagination. that the process takes place internally doesn't limit it to that.

there are some pseudo-sciences that are pseudo, precisely because they have no external imputs, that explicity deny external inputs or the need for them. economics is an example of one of these.

 

It seems to me there are two choices.

Either you believe that at one time there was nothing and nothing exploded and we got everything or you believe that something always existed and everything came from that something.

So you either believe in something from nothing or everything from something.

To me something from nothing doesn't seem very reasonable so I believe in everything from something.

So to answer the question, yes I believe God exists.

 

that would've made good sense a few years ago but the most interesting advanes in phisics has changed that. here are a few quotes from one of my favorite physicists Lawrence Krauss:

"nothing isn't nothing anymore!"

"nothing weighs something."

"most of the weight of the universe comes, not from matter, but from "nothing"."

"in quantum mechanics, nothing is actually a boiling bubling brew of virtual particles that are fluctuating in and out of existance."




In the following video (at around 18:30) Professor Krauss shows us how scientists have proven that subatomic particles can and do come into existance from nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaGktVQdNg

is solid proof from a nobel winning research team and an animated model of how particles can and do come from nothing resonable enough?

i have a theory that no evidence can change the mind of theists because their beliefe is illogical, so it is impossible to change with logic. i have put proof infront of you that should change your beliefs at least in the fact that something can and does come from nothing. will you change your mind in the face of apposing evidence?

 

The belief is not illogical considering the thought system that inspires it. That is it is the strength of conviction or enduring to the end that assures success. It is true in a general sense but only if you don't add conviction to a particular dogmatic ideology and if you do it becomes propaganda rather than actual strength or clarity of mind. To them everything is made clear in the end so there is a logical refusal to account for contemporary information or perhaps a logical attempt to fit it into the schematic of their belief.

This can be contrasted with another view of the idea of enduring to the end or strength of conviction which is not purposefully ignorant and forestalling of results and that is to keep at it until you get it or until you succeed. A matter of effort toward a desired aim.

 

i agree that our everyday thought process and our experience leads us to assume that somethig from nothing is illogical. but if through scientific process we prove that it happens, we should accept that fact regardless of weather we like it or not.


if you ignore proven facts, then logicall conversation dissolves and we cannot have a discussion.

if new discoveries are made that contradict old beliefs, then the old ways of thinking should go out the window. i believe whatever your goal is, when your beliefs are more in line with reality, you will be more effective.

 

It is true for you and I but a true believer will persist thinking all the while his logic is irrefutable.

So the only possible route to getting through to reason in such a situation is to question the specifics of belief as to reasonable consistency in themselves rather than subject those beliefs to physical evidence.

To do this you have to be very familiar with their beliefs. The gentleman you are questioning in this instance doesn't persist with me because he can't hang with the types of comparisons I make.

A certain kind of audience is a sucker for his approach, for one because they are convinced he is being illogical but to him you are talking about oranges while he talks about apples. The inane arguments then proceed with a fury.

The perspective I gave on the terms enduring to the end and such would be a new discovery to someone who hadn't considered those terms in that way before. This deals with the psychic arrangement of particular belief. Our responses are arranged around fundamental conceptions. It is a that level then where the work is accomplished and adding peripheral facts doesn't alter the substantial conclusions.
I agree that reality supports it's constituents and what is not real does not exist.

 

the solution is to never consider what you know to be "irrefutable". this is how i see science. i will always accept new ideas if they are more accurate than what i thought before.

 

Did you even bother to watch the video that you posted?

 

yes whats your point?

 

I consider if it is refutable I don't know it but then I would have to consider myself capable of discerning the difference. My best hit is that knowledge is being shared and if it can't be shared then it is a private affair not concerned too much with knowing. Peer review and repeatable experiments or experiences are the communal test.

 

No