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"Before saving for a rainy evening, see your xenial lawyer!"
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
Thanks for that..science or not. It was always a possibility that something can come from nothing when one is talking about a nothing with potential to become something. That always seemed to make more sense than a big invisible human that itself didn't need to come from anywhere.
it was just making it a credible possibility that was the problem. I don't pretend to understand it, but that it considered possible is good enough for me. And it addresses another problem that was sometimes used as'evidence of god' - a universal constant
An articles by a sorta-theist on this said that he accepted that everything else had an answer, but that the universe was based on a constant was the best evidence that there had to be a god behind it
I thought it was a pretty good point, but it had a potential danger - if that can be explained in natural terms, then theism has nothing left.
1. What kind of "nothing" has the potential to become Something?
2. Is the "...big invisible human..." a reference to "god"?
A fictional supernatural being that some folks believe in, against all evidence.
As the concept of God is not falsifiable, your evidence must be vapid as any proof for God.
15 yrs ago I began to seriously question my sanity and became uneasy with my atheism.
I realized I was trying to prove the nonexistence of what I claimed did not exist.
Cute.
Well, you can think that, but lemme tell ya...if one experiences God or the Holy Spirit directly,
and I'm speaking from exp, you will probably cry everyday for 3 months at the memory,
grovel a bit in your heart saying...
"Anything.... I'll do anything ...just please give me that exp again!!!!!!!!" grovelgrovelgrovel...
and then be called a kook.
Everything you write is true.
I have had that experience, 15 yrs ago,
I was atheist but life overtook me and I was forced to reconsider my closest held beliefs.
The God bomb went off and I was flyin for a couple of yrs on the experience, a profound change came over me, it felt as though I had a mind transplant. I still had the same memories but was thinking with a new mind, reacting to the world in a completely new way. I realized how terrified I had been my whole life and the fear had dissolved away.
"and then be called a kook"
Ancient roman saying "whosoever the gods use, first they make mad."
You know, I really do not know anyone who *demands* evidence of God. I simply don't believe that I have ever seen any evidence that would convince me there is a God. I don't really demand that anyone provide evidence. It's sort of *I'll know it if it happens and it hasn't happened yet.*
All atheists demand evidence, its why they are called defiant.
They usually go further and make the huge mistake of demanding proof, objective proof.!
God is spirit, that which can only be experienced within, I cannot have an experience for you, you must seek your own and quit looking "out there".
I know you WILL know it if it happens , I also know it will never happen until you allow for the possibility.
I know this because self will is what prevents the experience.
One thing that can greatly help is to be emptied of self, when a person is emptied of self they will be filled with God automatically.
In science seeing is believing, in spirituality believing is seeing.
The reason being, it requires a reduction in ego for an atheist to try to believe,
that slight ego reduction is what allows for God to enter. Deflation is a must.
You will not see evidence, it's something that will happen to you. The experience IS the evidence.
Its a total 100% inside job.
We are familiar with Conversions. They happen all the time. We are also familiar with De- conversion (which you may not know so well) which is where those who have either been brought up in religion, or who have Found God as they say, later on, begin to ask questions and have doubts. That pesky evidence that is the subject of the topic.
And they tell themselves that evidence isn't relevant - only personal experience and faith matters - - but they can't shake the idea that it is crazy to have faith in something that says something is factually true that on all evidence, isn't.
And first they drop the claims that cannot stand against evidence, and we get an irreligious/agnostic god -believer. And if you are one of those, I have no real quarrel with you. I don't believe in it myself, but I don't reject the possibility that these feelings beneath the body -belt are indeed the contact with some sorta -god.
However, trying to link that "god" (the rule is lower case (1) with a particular religion..opens the door to more of that darned Evee-dernse.
And there are those who stay in the agnostic -theist mode indefinitely, but also others who, having accepted the validity of the reason to not believe in the gods of any religion, also see the validity of the reason not to believe in ANY god -claim - until some decent evidence ("proof" in the popular terminology) s forthcoming.
And they have "let Go" (2) as the say. And this is as profound an experience as any conversion. It is a profound release and relief from worry, guilt and fear. I can tell you this from personal experience.
I used to be puzzled by having had what was evidently a deconversion, because I have been atheist all my life. I was puzzled by it, but now I know why it happened. It isn't disbelieving God as is generally thought. It is becoming free of the claims of theism.
Now, I don't say this to persuade you - indeed I am all ready with the counter to "Satan had persuaded you," which is always a favourite, and I'm ready for the usual accusations about Pride and Arrogance, but really just to disabuse you of any idea that Witnessing to us is any more persuasive that swearing to me that you are Jesus (I kid you not - one poster did, a few years ago). And my posting to say so is in case you feel that witnessing to the converted might impress them - if left undebunked. So I am obliged to do it....no, no; don't bother to apologize - I'm only too happy to do so
Yeah....just the bit about God popping the DvD oy Life and..the expression of old maidish censure on his divine countenance as he watches what we got up to... creases me up everytime.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 04-06-2017 at 01:11 PM..
Reason: just clarifications..and another footnote.yeah...why not....
I was 10 yrs old, quite happy that no-one could see my thoughts, I was free to think anything I wanted.
I didn't believe in God but had to attend catholic school, so I kept secret thoughts from the nuns.
Walking down the street, in a second there was no street, just complete blackness, then a second later the street reappeared. Scared the crap out of me. It never happened again. But it had happened while I was gloating inwardly that no-one knew what I was thinking about and that there was no God.
I was a defiant little brat .
Decades later I asked a psychiatrist what had happened, he said that was FEAR.
I believe it was God tapping me on the shoulder.
I was 10 yrs old, quite happy that no-one could see my thoughts, I was free to think anything I wanted.
I didn't believe in God but had to attend catholic school, so I kept secret thoughts from the nuns.
Walking down the street, in a second there was no street, just complete blackness, then a second later the street reappeared. Scared the crap out of me. It never happened again. But it had happened while I was gloating inwardly that no-one knew what I was thinking about and that there was no God.
I was a defiant little brat .
Decades later I asked a psychiatrist what had happened, he said that was FEAR.
I believe it was God tapping me on the shoulder.
I remember driving from Jacksonville up to northern Pennsylvania. Long trip -- and I left late in the day, around 4pm.
Often when I have no schedule to keep and no particular place to be, I won't travel by interstate. I drive the entire trip on secondary roads so I can actually see the country a little bit -- I enjoy driving through all the little towns and seeing all the forgotten sights usually seen only by the locals.
I was driving on secondary roads in the wee hours of the night. I'm pretty sure I was somewhere in rural North Carolina just north of Bowman. Suddenly ... and I do mean suddenly, I was sitting at a red light in a small town intersection with no memory of how I got there. One minute I was driving through a lightly forested landscape and the next, bang, I was at this intersection. Once I figured out what town I was in, I checked the map and realized I was over 30 miles further north than where I had been just seconds ago - or what at least felt like seconds.
So, what happened? That really did happen to me, by the way. No joke. Sure, I could somehow bring God into it. Yeah, God tapped my shoulder and whatnot.
But ya know? Religion, deity worship, going to church, relying on superstition -- that was never a big part of my upbringing, never a big part of my formative years. Nor was I surrounded by it growing up.
In all honesty, were I to ascribe an explanation, a more likely one would be alien abduction. At least with aliens, there is no need to resort to anything supernatural, magical, or anything physically or naturally impossible. Alien abduction *could* occur within the known laws of our universe.
I think we tend to explain the unusual events in our lives, those "glitches in the matrix" events, with whatever explanations we were raised with, what we were (and are) immersed within. Religious people will invariably see everything in reference to god and won't even bother looking for an alternative explanation. Atheists will do everything in their power to refute the idea that the event was caused by a god. With the atheist, of course, they have a much easier time of it.
I was 10 yrs old, quite happy that no-one could see my thoughts, I was free to think anything I wanted.
I didn't believe in God but had to attend catholic school, so I kept secret thoughts from the nuns.
Walking down the street, in a second there was no street, just complete blackness, then a second later the street reappeared. Scared the crap out of me. It never happened again. But it had happened while I was gloating inwardly that no-one knew what I was thinking about and that there was no God.
I was a defiant little brat .
Decades later I asked a psychiatrist what had happened, he said that was FEAR.
I believe it was God tapping me on the shoulder.
Whatever it was, it sounds like a poor rationale for god-faith
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