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But you see, Arq, I am as sure there is a God as you are sure of your reflection in the mirror.
I know that has been your problem with me. But, I am sure of my belief. I don't have one doubt. I'm not a "fundie" or an "evangelical" and I don't want "church" in our government any more than you do. I'm not a church goer and I know exactly what the Bible is. I know that the Bible is a confusing tale of oral history, analogy, parable, mis-written words, mistranslations, edits and reedits, and way too many humans have had their grubby little hands all over it. The Bible is the genealogy of one family and the "life and times" of that one family. It has nothing to do with the world at large. It is simply a tool - and an imperfect one at that.
I have credible evidence - for me and only for me. I can't prove it to you or anybody else because it doesn't work that way. You have to find it on your own. That is what non-believers don't understand. Non-believers are so busy trying to disprove God that they can't see what I can see. Your looking at books and at logic and at science for your answers. You won't find the answers there. They don't exist there. They exist only within you. I know you don't understand and you may call me "delusional" and tell me that because I can't prove it to you, then it just doesn't exist. I'm used to that on this forum. There are a lot of things that I can't prove to anyone else who hasn't "been there/done that" because it is not in books, or logic, or science. I have a healing broken finger, but I can't prove to you what that is like, either. You must experience it for yourself to really know what it is like and how many problems it causes in daily function - especially typing! Spirituality is as individual as it gets. That is the whole point.
Right..faith in what convictions? Unless you regard them as none of my business. Just asking, not arguing.
Convictions(that i believe come from God) in that which i cannot escape from that just as i look in the mirror and see my own reflection, when i look within me, i see that i am made in the image of God. I am something more than flesh and blood.
I have credible evidence - for me and only for me. I can't prove it to you or anybody else because it doesn't work that way. You have to find it on your own. That is what non-believers don't understand. Non-believers are so busy trying to disprove God that they can't see what I can see. Your looking at books and at logic and at science for your answers. You won't find the answers there. They don't exist there. They exist only within you. I know you don't understand and you may call me "delusional" and tell me that because I can't prove it to you, then it just doesn't exist. I'm used to that on this forum. There are a lot of things that I can't prove to anyone else who hasn't "been there/done that" because it is not in books, or logic, or science. I have a healing broken finger, but I can't prove to you what that is like, either. You must experience it for yourself to really know what it is like and how many problems it causes in daily function - especially typing! Spirituality is as individual as it gets. That is the whole point.
For you, it sounds like religion is a personal thing based on subjective experiences and emotions. You seem to "just know", based on your experience. Is it analogous to being "in love" where you "just know" and scientific evidence is quite irrelevant?
I'm not attacking you, I'm just trying to understand. There are other forum members which (as far as I can tell) seem to hold similar views.
Personally, I don't take issue with "personal religion." I mainly take issue with "organized" religion that seeks to gain political power and dominate the public sphere by bullying anyone who doesn't get on board.
I agree it is impossible to prove that no God exists.
Much like proving there is no teapot orbiting around Mars, the pink elephant in my garage and so on. You cannot prove a negative, please get with the times.
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As to evidence, it is like evolution. No real evidence exists for evolution.
I suppose if you have your head in the sand that may be true
However the ongoing study of genetics is leading heavily towards intelligent design for all living things.
Ha ha, intelligent design like defunct appendix, wisdom teeth, kidney stones because our kidney have not caught up with our bipedalism and not to mention al these deformed babies
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Who the Designer is an open question to many, I will agree.
There is no designer, a designer would not allow deformed babies a dna screw up with my son's skin causing him to lose pigmentation called Vitiligo (like what Michael Jackson had). Evolution and random mutation is the only plausible reason for these abnormalities and deficiencies.
The problem with most theists, they have no real knowledge of genetics and the discovery of DNA is still a relatively new science but it blew all their creation myths out the water with the Genome Project
All those linkies are google searches, see how easy it is to educate yourself? Maybe then you will not make doff statements like wot you did.
Convictions(that i believe come from God) in that which i cannot escape from that just as i look in the mirror and see my own reflection, when i look within me, i see that i am made in the image of God. I am something more than flesh and blood.
Much like proving there is no teapot orbiting around Mars, the pink elephant in my garage and so on. You cannot prove a negative, please get with the times.
I suppose if you have your head in the sand that may be true
Nope, plethora of evidence for evolution, evilooshun however, you are correct.
Ha ha, intelligent design like defunct appendix, wisdom teeth, kidney stones because our kidney have not caught up with our bipedalism and not to mention al these deformed babies
There is no designer, a designer would not allow deformed babies a dna screw up with my son's skin causing him to lose pigmentation called Vitiligo (like what Michael Jackson had). Evolution and random mutation is the only plausible reason for these abnormalities and deficiencies.
The problem with most theists, they have no real knowledge of genetics and the discovery of DNA is still a relatively new science but it blew all their creation myths out the water with the Genome Project
All those linkies are google searches, see how easy it is to educate yourself? Maybe then you will not make doff statements like wot you did.
Perhaps some of the claims could be backed up by ExpatCA. Your point about God requiring proof by believers, not disproof from non -believers is simple logic and denial would be futile and otiose.
Blinkered denial of the evidence of evolution - well, all we can do is keep presenting the evidence in the hope that some people at least don't have their heads welded shut.
But the case for Intelligent design, that might be an interesting area of discussion, though I imagine it would be the usual matter of a page of links posted all of which would have have to be read and refuted, with the usual dismissal of our 'refusal to see the truth'. But, like refuting the only bit of evidence that even looked like evidence for creationism (Polonium haloes) it might be worth chewing over the ID case again since we sometimes get it presented as evidence for Creation.
The interesting thing is that ID is really evidence for evolution. Yes, it is. Because it argues that evolution of life -forms over a geologically long time happened, but it needed God to help it along because (it claims) a lifeform becomes unviable while the new feature is developing. (Irreducible Complexity)
The interesting thing is that ID or I/C is never used that way but as an evolution -denier, saying that evolution cannot happen. This is absurd because even creationists admit that it DOES happen, if only on a micro -basis.
Either was ID-I/C was shown to be unsound, unscientific and unfounded. It is as useless as an argument for Creation as Polonium haloes.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 01-18-2015 at 10:03 AM..
Reason: 'unviable', not 'inviolable' I don't know...must eb the bacon affecting me.
I'm fine with that, Ella. If you explain your experiences here then I am likely to put other explanations that occur to me. Mainly because to say nothing would set my alarm bell off - like there's a voice in my head saying: "If you don't put the other view that is the only one that is available. It becomes the default theory." So it becomes a claim even if you didn't intend it so. That is why I have never bought the 'Not arguing - just telling.' line of some posters. It has to be questioned in the wider context, not to try to deconvert you or anything like that.
And you might be right, but the fact that it is an unexplained means that there is no definite explanation. I accept that you are quite sure what it is and it is no problem for me as you don't try to force it on me the way organized religion is pushed.
Thanks, Arq. Reasonable conversation is the first step in our understanding each other.
And, yes, I understand that you must "hold the line"
There is a definite explanation for me and others like me. It's just one that we cannot explain to anyone else. That is frustrating to us. Hey, if it was easy, everybody would have it!
It is like every other experience in life. Until one has had that experience, one cannot truly understand that experience and another cannot explain it.
I'm sure you have had an ice cream cone, or a piece of apple pie, or a big juicy steak. How do you explain a piece of apple pie to one who hasn't ever had a piece of apple pie? I'm sure you've had the flu, or the measles, or a headache. How do you explain those things to someone who never has? We have a lot of collective understanding in this life because we have each experienced that event - whether it was an ice cream cone on a hot day or the flu in the dead of winter. But we only have that "knowledge" because we experienced it for ourselves - not because someone explained it to us. This is not right or wrong or good or bad. It just is.
It is not right for everybody. I am no better or worse than you are. I'm just different. Those differences don't have to make us enemies.
As a matter of fact, you are beginning to grow on me.
Thanks, Arq. Reasonable conversation is the first step in our understanding each other.
And, yes, I understand that you must "hold the line"
There is a definite explanation for me and others like me. It's just one that we cannot explain to anyone else. That is frustrating to us. Hey, if it was easy, everybody would have it!
It is like every other experience in life. Until one has had that experience, one cannot truly understand that experience and another cannot explain it.
I'm sure you have had an ice cream cone, or a piece of apple pie, or a big juicy steak. How do you explain a piece of apple pie to one who hasn't ever had a piece of apple pie? I'm sure you've had the flu, or the measles, or a headache. How do you explain those things to someone who never has? We have a lot of collective understanding in this life because we have each experienced that event - whether it was an ice cream cone on a hot day or the flu in the dead of winter. But we only have that "knowledge" because we experienced it for ourselves - not because someone explained it to us. This is not right or wrong or good or bad. It just is.
It is not right for everybody. I am no better or worse than you are. I'm just different. Those differences don't have to make us enemies.
As a matter of fact, you are beginning to grow on me.
Some have compared me to an infestation before now. Yes, Holding the line, is pretty much it. That is why we keep a watch on 'incremental creep' like getting a tract distributed at school or a crucifix worn as part of aircrew costume or a checkout- girl refusing to sell bacon or a reduction given for a customer who prays over their steak (if anything like that should happen (1) or those nice harmless Amish driving their buggys on the highway without the gadgetry required by law. Why make a fuss about such a Harmless and Minor matter. Yep, we are aware of the line being crossed even in minor matters.
In your case it is not a problem....hang on, stirfry and a Cold One is calling me...
...aghhh...as I simply observe that what you are experiencing is well known to me by way of report, and I know the effect is commonly described as an experience of "God". Or a near equivalent.
I don't rule out that this is what it might well be, and I might experience it myself and be converted. I might reveal (since you are growing on me, too) that a method of obtaining this Experience is what drew me to Buddhism (which seemed the religion most aimed at obtaining the experience).
However, I cannot rule out that the experience (though real) is not what it is often presented as being. I also can reveal that I can recall numerous deconversions by people who had an experience (though it might be claimed that it could not have been a 'Real' one) but I can only recall one (arguable) claim of an atheist who understood all the ins and out converting through a Mystical experience. So you see that I have to reserve judgement about what the experience actually IS.
I may further mention a niggling suspicion that I may have had the experience, but as part of deconversion experience, not a conversion. It is odd as i was not a believer anyway but it was a feeling similar to the 'letting go' experience that sounds very much what a poster was badgered (by me) into describing when she 'experienced God'.
An almost visceral feeling of peace and joy. Only in my case a (not uncommon) feeling of a huge weight and burden sliding from my shoulders.
I have been really open and frank here as I think you have sorta earned it. I also want to be quite honest about where I am and why.
(1) sometimes it is advisable to say a quick one before dining out. Like it said in 'The Wizard of Id':
"Do you have reservations?"
"Yes, but we're so hungry, we'll take the risk."
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 01-18-2015 at 10:37 AM..
Very Good post EP. I very much agree with you that the answers and the knowing lie within. Jesus said ask,seek and knock, and i have no doubt that he was speaking of our inner being is the place to ask,seek and knock. It took me close to 25 years of being a christian before i understood this, then all my chains of wrong concepts about the nature and character of God fell off and all the traditions and doctrines of men i had fastened myself to by the wrong concepts i had of God began to wash away.
Yes, I totally understand what you are saying. I, too, had about 25 years of being a Christian before I understood. And yes, all the chains of wrong concepts fell away. That's why I left organized religion. The God I came to know was not the God of church.
It is so frustrating that we can't explain it. Perhaps that is part of the "persevering" we are supposed to do. Stand fast while the world tells you that you are delusional.
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Just asking, not arguing.
Spirituality is as individual as it gets. That is the whole point.
That is frustrating to us. 
Hey, if it was easy, everybody would have it! 
