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I find your line of reasoning curious. You have appointed yourself as one who is intelligent enough to set the criteria for God's existence being factual - or not. What makes you think that you are capable of measuring the infinite with your finite mind? That's a trifle absurd, don't you think so?
The highlighted portion of your statement is exactly my point. As I said, as an agnostic I don't think it's possible to know if god exists. One of the reasons is because god is supposedly infinite, while I'm a finite biological organism. But you're finite as well!! So by your own reasoning, isn't logically impossible for you, me, or any other finite organism to know and understand something infinite? Since we're both finite, how can either of us know?
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Originally Posted by Mahrie
You see, as I explained in my post, I have seen, felt (physically), touched, and heard God, and I am always in His Presence, as surely as He lives within me. (I'll leave taste out of this for the moment.) So since I have perceived God with at least four of the physical senses that we both agree exist, it follows that God must exist - by your own line of reasoning.
In other words... 'WOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! god just fills me with his presence, it's just, so, so, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'
It seems to me that's all you're really saying. It's complete gibberish.
Oh, and yes, it's logically impossible for a sightless organism to understand color. So, yes, if humans were a sightless species, we wouldn't be able to perceive it. Sure, color still, but for organism incapable of detecting it, color has no impact on their existence. Just as the concept god has no direct influence on our existence; it only influences those of you who believe it.
There is no such thing as an ex-Christian. If you were a Christian, you would still be one. Millions of people call themselves Christians, but their 'fruit' says otherwise.
I did not call unbelievers blind. I was simply using an analogy - and yourline of reasoning to point out to you why you can't seem to find the God you claim to be seeking. The One you said you would 'Love to find.'
I notice that you neglected to quote the part of my post in which I answered your questions regarding physical proof of God's existence - again, by your own reasoning.
Somehow, I don't think you're looking for God - an argument maybe, but not God.
I've done as you asked and answered your questions, and my answers prove (by your reasoning) that God does indeed exist.
I don't argue about Scripture.
Have good day,
Mahrie.
LOL, I assure you I am not an argumentative person. My content is just dialog on a message board and offering a type of opinion most never see, no more, no less.
I went over my posts and I did not see any "questions" I had.
I would like to give my opinion about people hearing voices but I better not go there.
I never experienced a touch, voice, nor a sight of any god and this invisable being never did anything for me nor mankind. I had to do my own thinking which didn't come until I moved out of my parents house at age 19.
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If you were a Christian, you would still be one.
I was indeed one and I take offense to you saying I am not truthful. But that was because I was brainwashed by my parents who I might add were very abusive toward me especially my religious father, going to Catholic school, and years of CCD Sunday school. Many were smart enough to rise above that but I wasn't. I already admitted my embarrassment over this.
Faith, we all live by it, even the atheist. As a Christian I choose faith in God the creator of the universe and the ecosphere. Atheists on the other hand choose faith in man and his institutions, Fannie and Freddie are prime examples. Just look at any government entity.
You are mixing senses and definitions of the word "faith" in an attempt to dignify a foolish sense from a reasonable sense.
Faith in god (and leprechauns, unicorns, ghosts, etc) is belief in an asserted being who is invisible without a requirement of substantiation or proof of any kind. Faith in the secular, routine, everyday sense is trust based on experience. They are two different things.
As an unbeliever I have limited trust in human institutions, varying based on my observation and experience in shared reality with other humans. This has no correspondence at all with my lack of trust in god, which is based on the very low probability that he (1) exists (2) interacts with humanity (3) in the particular way you fancy that he does.
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Originally Posted by mickdoo
I ask how can you not see God and his hand in the World. Our solar system has over 200 planets in it. Only 1 has been designated for human life and that is earth. Do you the odds of this simply happening by chance?
There are by current definitions 8 planets (Pluto now being considered a planetoid). You are attempting to rope in the entire Ort cloud, apparently, to make your claim seem more impressive. Science doesn't expect life as we know it to exist in more than a few places at best within our solar system. Since we now know that the number of extrasolar earth-like worlds is plentiful galactically speaking, it is actually far more implausible to imagine that many of those do not contain life of some kind, some of it sentient and some of that technologically advanced. But even if life only exists on Earth it is proof of nothing except that life only exists on Earth.
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Originally Posted by mickdoo
Think for yourself here and do not rely on Science which has been manipulated by Man. Furthermore no transitional fossil exist which show man as evolving. The piltdown man was the closest and has been debunked as a complete fraud. fabricated by man and his so called science.
Think for yourself here and do not rely on religion which has been invented and manipulated by Man.
Piltdown Man? Seriously? Do you get your scientific info from Jack Chick tracts exclusively? The Piltdown hoax was disavowed by science more than two generations ago. Science, unlike religion, is able to change its point of view when presented with new evidence. And some scientists had doubts about it from the beginning (e.g., GS Miller, 1915). The perpetuation of the hoax for so long has as at least as much to do with nationalism and cultural prejudice as it does with science. Science believed at the time that the modern large brain predated the development of an omnivorous diet; it has since followed the evidence away from that hypothesis.
John 13: LOL, I assure you I am not an argumentative person. My content is just dialog on a message board and offering a type of opinion most never see, no more, no less.
John, no offense intended, but you're hardly an original. I've been a missionary for 40+ years and I sincerely doubt that you could come up with either an objection or a point of view that I haven't heard hundreds of times before - perhaps thousands. (Depending on what you say.)
I'm pleased to see that you're not looking for an argument though; as you won't get one from me.
I must go to bed now. Night-shift hours and all that.
There is no such thing as an ex-Christian. If you were a Christian, you would still be one. Millions of people call themselves Christians, but their 'fruit' says otherwise.
Oh, please. By that logic Christians have been known to disavow or marginalize their brothers and sisters who have personal problems and tragedies on the basis that "real Christians" aren't cursed, but blessed. It's always your fault somehow if you suffer too much or not meekly enough or in ways that disturb the slumber of others. And then the final betrayal for us deconverts: You Were Never One of Us. You would have accepted me as a brother in Christ, and commended me as such, for three decades. But all I had to do was look at (lack of) evidence enough to lose my belief, and it's all null and void.
Shame on you. Shame on you for your dishonesty and disloyalty and conditional love. And your arrogance.
And deliberate blindness. No such thing as an ex-Christian. No such thing as evolution. No such thing as ethics or morality apart from what Christianity says is ethical and moral. No such thing as anything that's inconvenient for your beliefs.
You Were Never One Of Us is nothing more than an implied threat of disacknowledgment and shunning for those within the faith, should they have the temerity to ask impertinent questions. What are Christians so terrified of? What do they have to fear from honest inquiry, anyway?
God, on the other hand, is composed of tangible energy
Then it will not trouble you to define and describe it in ways that demonstrate its existence. Yet you admit you don't know what to even call it, and describe subjective "dominant feelings" as if it were evidence of the intangible. I'm glad you have peaceful, transcendent feelings, but nice as those can be for people with a well developed and easily stimulatable "god spot", it is evidence of nothing but personal subjective feelings of transcendence.
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Originally Posted by Mahrie
Sometimes God gives me visions, and instructions in those visions, and He always touches me in a tangible way. At times He has soaked me with mist, as from a cloud. At other times Jesus has placed His hand on my head. Words are usually unnecessary, but sometimes words are audibly spoken in English, as that is the language I use most often nowadays. Most often, God speaks to one's spirit in unspoken words, usually in answer to a prayer that requires an immediate response.
These are all personal subjective experiences and mental phenomena. They are useless as evidence, to any decent evidentiary standard.
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Originally Posted by Mahrie
Not so with my experience with God and our ongoing tangible relationship. God is not a 'stranger' to me.
Ultimately, I believe (please note that I did not say *know*) that 'For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.'
Neither you nor I claim gnosis about god's existence or nonexistence. It is down to belief, and whether it is afforded or not, and one's concept of rational defaults when evidence is lacking.
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Originally Posted by Mahrie
But it's worth a shot now and then.
I have no issue with your beliefs. Believe what you want. My issue is with your claim that it serves as "proof" of anything for anyone other than yourself.
As a Christian for some 30 years, I know as well as you do that submitting to subjective experiences uncritically produces sometimes compelling feelings, and if you're willing to elevate those to be acceptable evidence, you can construct beliefs concerning just about anything. Nothing in your post claims anything different from what an Amazonian shaman or an acid-tripping psychonaut or new age acolyte will claim -- feelings of transcendence, joy, peace and nonduality are hardly unique to fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. You will doubtless object that those experiences are not about your One True God (actually your accepted dogma about god) but about "false" gods. I submit that the content of your experiences are from in between your own ears and conform to your beliefs just as a shaman's conforms to their beliefs. Tri-omni deity in your case, spirit realm guides for the shaman.
I know there is a God and, therefore, it is easy to understand the meaning of life which equates to "Why are we here?". I have always known God since I was a small child and am baffled by all those that are "lost" but I cannot find the answer for them; they must find their own answer.
All the time I used to spend praying I might as well be talking to a rock. It had the same effect.
LOL I hope you express that with a sense of humor. Yeah, while it might make the person praying feel better, in terms of actually resolving problems it's about as useful talking to a rock.
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Originally Posted by John13
I never experienced a touch, voice, nor a sight of any god and this invisable being never did anything for me nor mankind. I had to do my own thinking which didn't come until I moved out of my parents house at age 19.
I was indeed one and I take offense to you saying I am not truthful. But that was because I was brainwashed by my parents who I might add were very abusive toward me especially my religious father, going to Catholic school, and years of CCD Sunday school. Many were smart enough to rise above that but I wasn't. I already admitted my embarrassment over this.
I hope you don't dwell on this too much. It's extremely difficult for most persons to overcome beliefs and practices instilled by their family and peers since birth. In fact, I would venture that most never overcome them at all, and just accept what they're taught, not matter how utterly ridiculous. I wasn't socialized in a religious environment, so it's easy for me. I have tremendous respect for those of you who were, but eventually found the intellectual independence to reject it.
That you have overcome the abusive lunacy should serve as a source of pride I commend you for, not embarrassment. I'm not an outright Buddhist, but appreciate much about it: We can't change our past mistakes; all we can do is learn from them and try not to repeat them (much easier said than done, I know).
! mordant ! It's great to find you here. You debunk these delusional literalists more thoroughly and articulately than anyone else I've read. It's like you're the Seahawks and they're a peewee team.
just like we dont know if there is a God, we dont know the meaning of life?
Well that is not Gods fault. It is mans fault.
This is why men do not believe their is God Our Holy Father ! ! !
Prov:1:7:The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge:
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Ps:14:1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
They are corrupt, they have done abominable works,
there is none that doeth good.
Ps:53:1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity:
there is none that doeth good.
God does reveal Himself to those who Obey Him.
1Cor:2:9: But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10: But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13: Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
This is why man and all other thing were created including life.
Rv:4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Man was created for God Our Holy Fathers Pleasure ! ! !
No, it did not take something "special" to happen, which is actually my biggest issue with Christians and God having to appear as a man............. and on and on. Know that I grew up among people that were Christians (Church of the Brethern), not the Sunday/social kind though and that, and this won't make sense to most, I felt the presence of God in nature, saw the magic and wonder of creation, felt the spirit of God in the silence and beauty that surrounded me. I never feel alone and draw my emotional stability from knowing that God is there. My life has been an interesting journey, all of the 60 years of it that I remember.
"Lost", OK, they are on their own journey but with the opening of "just like we don't know if there is a God...........", not sure who "we" would be because I certainly know many people who know there is a God.
I separated from Christianity many years ago. Too many people tie God to just Christianity which says a lot about their knowledge of religion in the first place.
I don't know. None of our existence makes any sense to me. To me, I don't see any physical evidence of a god. I mean, the birth of my children seemed like a miracle, and sometimes things happen in my life that seem to definitely have some "divine guidance", but then horrible things happen to people every day. I wonder why if there is a god, why that god would intervene sometimes, and other times let horrible things happen to people. So many people on this earth live in extreme poverty and misery.
But then the thought that this is all totally random and life on earth is a series of billions of little coincidences makes no sense either.
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