Does God Exist?

i really don't think this is the big question. there are a lot things that might exist, and this god thing is one of them.

one thing i don't believe exists, is for any of the dominant religions, and of the sects of them, to really understand or know what they are talking about.

i just see god, if there is one or more, as a completely seperate thing, from any and all of them.

just as i also see issues of morality as being completely seperate from them as well.

i believe there are things we know nothing about, and that doesn't even take faith. i mean we live in a big universe and that part is pretty obvious.

but i also believe in completely non-physical things. that they at least can exist. and that any god or god like being, for many reasons, would just about have to be among them.

but again that doesn't make them have to have anything to do, with what any organized belief claims about them.

i think the term "christian god" is kind of an oxymoron. if there is a god, its the same god of islam and judaism and many older beliefs, stranger ones in some sense to the dominant culture, and possibly one even newer then islam. but i also have really major reservations about anything claiming to be infallible or being claimed to be.

that's not the god i imagine being very likely to exist. not a christianized zuess. not a god of hells or at war with anything. a god who's not happy to see people fuck everything up for each other, but not a god of my way or the high way.

you know we really don't know what's going on there. and the thing about that is we really don't have to.
its only the weakness of our own ego that insists we have to know everything.

 

Not in this thread. These statistics are your assumption or as you like to say your humble opinion. When you say Abrahamic god what do you mean? I think you mean Abrahamic tradition god having revealed itself to abraham in regards to a promised land. A tradition involving genetic descendants in relation to geopolitics and the geopolitical contest is ongoing still. In the bible god reveals itself to noah and others before abraham. The islamic view of the christian bible is that parts are revelation from god and parts are distorted or corrupted. The judaic view is that jesus is not the messiah and claims about his divinity are false. These three are only loosely allied around tradition or a traditional narrative. Great schism in beliefs within each of these is easy to see with protestant/ catholic. shia/sunni, and the orthodox/reform pulses of judaism. Those are just major divisions and there is a multitude of other variances. Abrahmic religion is a classification made by academics. Judaism, islam, and christianty are all different religions in particular. Why so many forms, diversity is the evolutionary rule for survival.

Now to the idea that you must believe in certain tenants such as the unique divinity of jesus to be a christian there is a saying,

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, 'He has a demon!' "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' "Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children.

 

As usual I have no idea what that quotation has to do with your point. You keep bringing in geopolitics. It's much simpler than that; ask people "Is your god a) a divine personality in the heavens with wishes, loves, fears, and other human-like attributes, or b) an immutable, miasmic, non-personal force", and most people will choose a), except for taoists, some hindus, and even less christians/jews/muslims. The vast majority will point out to you all the countless passages in their holy books which demonstrate that YWHW/Allah is basically an invisible super-person.

 

To say something might exist doesn't answer the question. There are things we can definitely say about the existence of god and I have personally pointed some out many times over in this thread and no use to go over it again.

So you believe that real understanding is not present enough to speak informatively. Fortunately my understanding doesn't rely on your belief as your belief doesn't rely on evidence.

There are two parts to religion. There is the outward form replete with it's dogmas and then there is the inner experience. In religious organizations, (institutions,) there are the ordained who present the organizational line and the lay person who is challenged to compare by day to day experience. Religious institutions are cultural/social arrangements and institutions don't speak. "They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men."

Right, a dogma or creed is not a god although you may be devoted to it and just so are unlikely to see god. We find what we look for or we keep looking. You also believe that non-physical things exist. In this instance belief is a symbol chosen to represent an unknown variable. There is nothing non-physical or nothing that lacks physics. The sensation you get is from the abstract, all the same physically interactive, quality of the mind. You can't personally put your finger on the seat of your consciousness and so you have no solid physical reference. Doesn't mean it is non-physical just means there is more yet to learn about it and this segues into your further point about not knowing it all and things we don't know. It is not a matter of not knowing anything, it is a matter of there always being more to learn.

 

God appeared in a burning bush. God appeared as a creative voice. God appears mostly in the form of messages, messengers, revelations, or ecstatic mystical experiences. God also appears as displays of nature. You want to consider the issue in simplistic terms and hypothetical poll taking. However your terms are over all inconsiderate of the complexity of human relations. There is no doubt there is much ignorance in the world. There is no doubt that daily i learn new things and sometimes expose a previous blind spot.

Consider the fact that not everyone cares for knowledge or strives for it. That is why some appear to know more even though knowledge is freely accessible. The majority of people are motivated by degree of sensational comfort. This level of attention is the norm. Few hunger and thirst for the true but are more often occasionally satisfied with their good sensations and just as often troubled when they are not. Many are called but few are chosen or more accurately, choose to listen. So the goods so to speak cannot in fact be determined by scale of popularity. God knows you in secret is a relevant phrase.

As to the geopolitical element that is the association to abraham between the three religions and they all focus on that level on who inherits the land. It is the foundation for western patriarchal proprietarianism. That is where the similarity ends as they all three have different views of the divine. So this is obviously an egotistical take. By egotistical I mean identified by how it is different or unique from the other. We are blessed by god, they are not. This does not imply an anthropomorphic god but an egocentric population.

 

You sure have a profound insight into the exact character of god and the nature of his manifestations in this world. You speak of the ignorant interpretations as being founded on the error of egotism, or seeing the differences, but are you not espousing the very view that your own take is different from theirs, and correct?

 

No I am positing my observations. My insight is into the way we conceive and the way we relate. As to the appearance and manifestations of god I have said repeatedly that god is that which we invoke. Extending from this is how scriptures come to be. I point to particular published phrases to lend insight to your claim as to how god appears. Answer many ways. How does life proliferate, by taking many forms. Am I right or am I wrong? Everything is in a constant state of becoming and sometimes I make mistakes. I am applying reason to the issue. Reason is ongoing and reasonableness finds it's home in reason we can share.

As far as the claim of egoism it relies of the definition of the claim of special favor. I didn't say ignorant interpretations but that the stories themselves are egotistical propositions. i did say there is much ignorance in the world. On it's face such claims are egotistical or as you say anthropomorphic in scope and fundamentally limited in their view of "god's favor," and they bring in the complimentary view of god's disfavor. All self aggrandizing invocations at the expense of the other.

 

If god is that which we invoke, then you might as well be an atheist, because you are saying that god is simply whatever you will god to be; put another way, you have flipped it around and are saying that you are god.

People worship god as the most powerful figure above all the cosmos and all the laws . . . but to you god is just whatever i want?

 

For a different view, see:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/muslim-no-go-zone-myth-origin
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-14/debunking-the-muslim-nogo-zone-myth
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/26/the-no-go-zone-myth-comes-to-america/202263
https://savinmybacon.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/debunking-the-muslim-no-go-zone-myth-businessweek/

 

It is highly interesting to me that the character jesus speaks frequently about the traps of the establishment religion. They are the same traps that we see today.

People worship or are innately devoted to their idea of authority. This is true in every walk of life. The practical god for everyone is in the power of their own sincere invocations. In theoretical terms this is gods creative power in man. I say theoretical as opposed to theological. Theology to me is the same as dogma. In theoretical terms god speaks things into existence and we are endowed with this same creative power as word becomes flesh. Our manifestations proceed thought word and deed. We are of like kind, equal in efficacy, children of god but not authority over god and therefor not authority over each other. Children with the authority of our own invocations to deal with.

As Allan Watts points out, has he not said that ye are gods

 

There is an element about the origin of religion that for obvious reasons is not generally discussed and those are secret practices or rites. The imbibing of food and drink and this implies the use of plant entheogens. Remember all heretical ideas were driven deep underground over time.

You cannot become part of me unless you eat my body and drink my blood. Mushrooms in honey, (mead, alias wine.)

I ate the word and it tasted like honey but it is hard to digest, hard to apprehend in terms we are used to.

 

If Jesus was divine and therefore separate from man, what is the point of his teachings? He tells you you can move mountains, and you have to believe he meant that literally, since he had all kinds of superpowers. Why does he lure you in with all of this stuff if you can't become divine as well?

 

Yep his power no use to me unless I share in it.

These things shall you do and things greater than these.

Very few honestly set their sights along these lines.

 

SEE
what?

 

loud mouths

 

I include this because he is a popular author among some of this group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw

 

I think it's a lot higher than that. I'm saying that the vast majority of believers (and non-believers) hold their beliefs for non-rational reasons, as they have from Paleolithic times. First of all, most are busy with other things, and adopt what opinion experts call a position of "rational Ignorance", which wiki tells us "occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide"."I don't have time for this crap. Too busy hunting mammoths. Let the shaman tell me how the spirit world works". Second, belief in supernatural agents is the product of powerful psychological mechanisms that are deeply rooted in human evolution. If we aren't directly "hard-wired" for it, we are hard-wired in such a way that the belief is very easy to acquire as a result of the way our brain works: our tendency to believe what trusted others tell us, to find patterns and attribute agency to the things in our environment, and to find meaning in our existence. I doubt that even you, I , or Richard Dawkins are completely "rational" on this subject, but at least we recognize the problem and try to be as rational as we can on the basis of available information.

But we can't be sure that individuals believe what their churches say. A Pew Research Center study in 2008 survey reported that 60% of U.S. adults view that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship," but 25% believe that "God is an impersonal force." Most mainline Protestant seminaries teach a more sophisticated idea of God, although the graduates may not share it with their congregations. In deciding whether or not there is a God, or what kind of God there is, the half-baked notions of billions of people who seldom read a book or do much critical thinking shouldn't settle the matter.

 

Ok dope, so you know you're god, and I know I'm god. The problem is most of the world doesn't, they think god is "out there" and he "wants" things, geopolitical things, and that's the issue I am confronting. I do not feel you are helping by pointing out the esoteric nature of scriptures, because you are at best preaching to the choir with me. I'm not the problem, I'm not the one who wants to institute sharia, i'm not the one who thinks jesus will come in the next 50 years (like half of all americans do) and literally kill unbelievers and destroy the world, to reunite everyone with their grandma and pets.

I'm just asking for those with knowledge of other ways of living come forward and speak to, and against, those who are pushing for the literalist and primitive interpretations of ancient myths. Who are you helping when you speak against those like me? You're not helping me, by arguing with my aim. You're helping someone else, and that someone else is not someone you want to be helping. In fact, I doubt very much you'd enjoy having them over for dinner.

So I'm confused as to the intentions of many posters here, who seem to just be knee-jerk reacting to any post that might suggest that there might be a problem within the titanic aegis of thought and behavior known as religion.

 

Okiefreak, on 15 Mar 2015 - 11:07 AM, said:
Don't you think this is a bit misleading? From the "okiefreak said" lead, the casual reader might think I posted these, instead of articles indicating that the No Go Zones you've alleged are largely mythical. That there are Muslims who believe Sharia should be adopted in western countries, stirred up by radical demogogues exploiting the liberties of free socieities, is undeniable. How many are there? How serious is the likelihood that it will happen? A black mass was celebrated at the Oklahoma City Civic Center last fall. Should we be concerned that Satanists are getting out of control right here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. Skinheads and neo-Nazis seem to be involved in more violence in western countries than Muslims are. And what exactly do you and Mr. Writer propose to do about Sharia-loving Muslims, anyhow. Ban them?



For a different view, see: