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Correct, ridiculous. There never will be evidence...unless we become some advanced super scientists one day.
However, unlike many...and get this, ''without psychedelics", hahahahaha ...I have experienced in many
of those 'Special Ah-ha Moments' of Cosmic Consciousness, every single solitary thing you see even
a dust particle in a living room sunbeam is within the 'body' of this unimaginable 'Being' of
pure Consciousness everywhere and within everything. Oh my.
And that, my lucky friends, is the watered down version.
The one with more flourish? Lol ...and Reality? N-o-t-h-i-n-g you see with your eyes open is real.
And pls, don't believe me...experience it for yourself one day and then you too, can become a pariah among the majority!!!! Yay!!!!
Not totally true miss H.
Mystic's field has some flaws in it. but the base premise that our reality is based on the universe isn't totally out of sync with science. the flaw is his single field. I have no idea why he holds on o it.
life is a result of the universe processing data in a meaningful way. We know its quantum computing right now. people that don't know what that means can deny it all they want, it doesn't make it less true. In fact, when they flat deny it or tell me "we have to stop religion so don't say that." it kind of clues us in on intentions.
MIT is looking into that very notion as we speak. they actually think it has a very good possibility to be true.
I don't think there is a default position on this. Because, like I said, it's unfalsifiable.
I just take the position of most atheists when I say that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe there *is* a god - but if there is, then it certainly isn't Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, or anything related to mankind's fetish for religion.
It would be a truly unknowable god that we really do not understand. None of this crazy talk of - "Well, God's mind is too vast, too complicated for a mere human to understand. BUT ... I understand that God hates gays and cares to an exceeding degree about our sexual proclivities, plus he hates it when people wear two different types of fabric together or plants two different crops in the same field. Women are worth half of what a man is worth, and we understand that God demands our worship, adoration and obedience and if we don't supply those things, he'll pop off and destroy a city or something. Otherwise, gee, I just can't possibly know the mind of God!"
Odd how people know just enough about God to use religion as a means of persecution, oppression, hatred, and authoritarian fascism - but not enough to really answer any of the big questions, ya know?
After watching believers cast about for any explanation no matter how ridiculous, it becomes more obvious every day that they're making it up as they go along. Now, the idea that God is only as powerful as logic allows - instead of simply "all powerful" as a means to duck out of the many logical paradoxes that occur with an all-powerful entity. What, it took 3,000 years to figure that out? Of course not. As I said, they're making stuff up as they go.
Anyone who can buy into this may as well be a JW and believe in all of their failed predictions. The contortions people perform to keep their god relevant is - unbelievable.
Which is why I've always said that including Christian myths in your theories about agape love and whatnot is a glaring departure from what would otherwise be an elegant explanation for certain things.
One of the things I regard as Positive about Mystic is that he has little truck with orthodox Christianity. Indeed with any religion. We do - as i sometimes say - agree on more than we disagree on. Really just this slapping of the 'god -claim' on nature.
I don't care for his interpretation of a Romans execution as as a piece of theatre to teach us love (why not the loaves and fishes I can't imagine) and of course the 'learning curve' theory is full of holes, which mystic just waves away.
Then we have no argument, Shirina. It is Arq, Rafe, etc. who demand the default because they do not allow their minds to contemplate deep enough into the premises they are using. I take issue with your "there isn't sufficient evidence to believe there *is* a god" but completely agree with the rest. When you say there isn't sufficient evidence for God, you ARE implicitly establishing a default of "No God" which you admit does not exist. You cannot demand evidence of God that exceeds what we already know about Reality without implicitly CLAIMING the default position of "No God," but you can BELIEVE it. I cannot CLAIM God exists without declaring the default position but I can BELIEVE it. The difference between you and I is that I have an experience of God that overrides everything else so I am very adamant that there be NO DEFAULT. Everything about God is in the BELIEF category, including yours. We do not disagree about ANY of this, Shirina. Beliefs ABOUT God should have NO IMPACT on what others do or do not do. That is society's role in maintaining safety and order. Beliefs about God apply ONLY to each individual according to THEIR beliefs and have nothing to do with what ANY others do. We come into this life alone and we will leave it alone so any responsibility we have to God is between God and each of us individually. I get that, but I came to adopt my modified Christian narrative well AFTER my Synthesis of our Reality and our place in it had been sufficiently elucidated into a coherent whole. I searched the spiritual fossil record for indications that an overarching consciousness was indeed influencing the spiritual evolution of our understanding of God (our Reality). The ubiquitous Savior or Avatar template did indeed match my Synthesis and the Christian descriptions of a God who IS love matched my experiences in detail. That did require, tho, that I modify the barbaric and savage mainstream Christian rationale used to interpret what Jesus was and what He did which is NOT reconcilable with my Experiences or my Synthesis.
Without too much ego, I believe my version of the Christian narrative is the most accurate description of the many earlier and less evolved Savior narratives because resonance and dissonance control and drive everything in our Reality. If our species' consciousness has a role to play in the Cosmic drama, it revolves around its resonance with the overarching consciousness that establishes our Reality, IMO. That means at least one member of our species has to attain perfect resonance (identity) with the overarching consciousness to connect ALL human consciousness with it. The rest of us need only achieve some harmonic resonance with the one human consciousness that achieved perfect resonance. That is why the Jesus narrative "resonated" with me and I adopted it.
As I said to Shirina, the only thing we debate on is this business of the claim that nature is God. This is Shirina's position as well, so there is no difference between her view of it and mine and no difference between your disagreement with she and I.
And if you just made it a faith -claim - if you said 'I believe it - but I can see why you don't', then this decade long battle we have had would be over. It is solely because you say that we are wrong or at least wrongheaded for not accepting the claim. We are logically speaking, not wrong.
why say its a faith claim? so you get a way out? so you get your little anti-religious socialist sect something?
We compare his faith claim to your faith claim and you come up short. get over it or get a more valid claim.
there is nature and every trait mystic's god has is nature's traits also. Mystic doesn't add one thing to his claim that isn't nature. They are identical.
we have to compare his claim, "nature defines our reality" to your claim "deny everything because some of us feel religion is so dangerous it must be stopped by any means necessary."
well, that was easy ... yours is debunked and spanked with a clearly less valid noodle.
keep changing trans, your almost there. keep applying apologetic notions (thinking) and adjust your claims accordingly.
why say its a faith claim? so you get a way out? so you get your little anti-religious socialist sect something?
We compare his faith claim to your faith claim and you come up short. get over it or get a more valid claim.
there is nature and every trait mystic's god has is nature's traits also. Mystic doesn't add one thing to his claim that isn't nature. They are identical.
we have to compare his claim, "nature defines our reality" to your claim "deny everything because some of us feel religion is so dangerous it must be stopped by any means necessary."
well, that was easy ... yours is debunked and spanked with a clearly less valid noodle.
keep changing trans, your almost there. keep applying apologetic notions (thinking) and adjust your claims accordingly.
This is a bit harsh but a fairly accurate summation of the status quo, IMO.
Was this about me saying 'nothing you see with your eyes open is real'?
Then, I would have a ques for you.
maybe? It was in relation to ...
"Correct, ridiculous. There never will be evidence...unless we become some advanced super scientists one day.
They are trying now to test. It is falsifiable, they are looking into it right now and they thinks its very possible that its true. "the cosmic mind" is a very real possibility and trans sect of atheism deny's it as surely as a Fundy theist deny evolution.
I don't care for his interpretation of a Romans execution as as a piece of theatre to teach us love (why not the loaves and fishes I can't imagine) and of course the 'learning curve' theory is full of holes, which mystic just waves away.
But doctrinally he and I don't disagree, in fact.
Yeah, it's Mystic's seeming need to include the crucifixion into his paradigm that I take issue with.
Jesus's execution was not an example of agape love. Jesus voluntarily crawled up on that cross and let himself be sacrificed - because Jesus was God and God knew exactly what he was doing.
At least according to standard Christian belief.
But even if you threw all that aside, it still comes down to this: If the God of the Bible doesn't exist, then there was no Garden of Eden, no Forbidden Fruit, and thus no Original Sin.
And, without Original Sin, there was no Fall of Man - in which case humanity has absolutely nothing to be forgiven for. The *only* reason why the crucifixion can be seen as anything more than an exceedingly cruel form of executon is if Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed so that humanity could be forgiven by God.
Otherwise - it's just one of untold millions upon millions of executions that have been carried out over the centuries.
Moreover, IF God should exist and all of this Bible malarchy turns out to be true, then there's the inescapable fact that the crucifixion wasn't even for we humans. It was for God's own benefit and nothing more. As we all know, God could have simply forgiven humanity without all of the pomp and ceremony - but God needed his blood sacrifice. Therefore, Jesus died to sate God's lust for blood. It had very little to do with forgiveness.
In any event, I fail to see how a run-of-the-mill if horrific execution or a blood sacrifice is any indication of agape love.
...In any event, I fail to see how a run-of-the-mill if horrific execution or a blood sacrifice is any indication of agape love.
Well, I hate the thought that anyone thinks, as Christians and Jews do, that God is blood-thirsty and loves blood sacrifices...or more preposterous, needs blood sacrifices. IF, say 'He' did...'He' certainly would get enough in the animal kingdom, right?
However, this Divine Love, agape love, unconditional love...Eternal Love, was needed for the masses to see...because you couldn't tell these
people, indoctrinated in ancient beliefs, by writing it in the sky..a simple cloud formation, "Te Amo" wouldn't cut it. Neither did feeding crowds from 5 loaves and fishes...buzzer...uneducated brains,
I mean, I give the silly cloud example, since people think God could "do" anything, "Why didn't 'He' do such and such?"
Why such gore?
It was because these people in the Middle East in the 30s AD...would only believe some horrific thing like a lamb
to slaughter...esp one that had a choice.
So, I do see Big Love being demonstrated...not the blood and torture part...but that someone would put themselves through such nonsense, JUST
for their ignorant minds to finally get....to open to the kind of immense, boundless love
this Creator had..(that they feared so much).
(I do not believe in a Garden, a Fall, original sin, a punishing Spiritual Being...or the neeeeed for a savior--to be killed for other people's boo-boos due to natural weakness, like falling to temptation.
Tell a child to stay outta the Cookie Jar and they will get a box to stand on.)
The whole story is made up!
No, we don't have all that much to argue about, which is why I don't take apart your posts like I do to other people. However ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I take issue with your "there isn't sufficient evidence to believe there *is* a god" but completely agree with the rest. When you say there isn't sufficient evidence for God, you ARE implicitly establishing a default of "No God" which you admit does not exist.
That's just incorrect.
My position is - and has always been - that there is insufficient evidence for me to believe in a God. That's not the same thing as saying there is *no* god. Maybe there is. But I don't see it.
As such, I cannot just will myself to belief in something on faith - which is what I would have to do. The default position is that I don't *believe* in god - not that there *is* no god.
In addition, that's my default position. That is how I choose to view the universe as it stands right now. If some good evidence came along, I would believe in whatever the evidence points to. I know that no god has been at work in *my* life - and even if there was, it certainly wouldn't be a god I would love, adore, worship, or even respect.
Bottom line is that there's no way I'm going to give over my life to a faith-based idea. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. My mind simply isn't wired that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
You cannot demand evidence of God that exceeds what we already know about Reality without implicitly CLAIMING the default position of "No God," but you can BELIEVE it.
I'm pretty sure that's what I was saying all along ... ?
Fact is, in no other aspect of our lives do we rationally believe in anything without evidence. Yes, even abstract emotions like love has evidence to go along with it. For instance, I know my mother loves me because of the way she treats me, the way she talks to me, the sacrifices she has made for me, her loyalty to me. It's not merely faith-based love because her actions and words supply the evidence that love truly does exist.
As such, we don't have faith in much of anything besides religion. And let's not confused faith with trust, either. For instance, if I get in a plane, I *trust* that the pilot is qualified and will get us to our destination. I don't have *faith* in the pilot - because that would be saying that I trust the pilot with no evidence. Yet he was hired by the airline, no doubt took a battery of tests, and has flown before. So there are grounds to trust him.
Unlike a god which, from my vantage point, hasn't done a thing for anyone - even if others think he has. I just see it as misplaced credit or a failure to really explore and understand a personal experience. Because, on those times I was able to pick apart a personal experience, there was still no evidence that a supernatural power was at work - and even less evidence that a specific god from a specific religion was the cause.
It is one of my beefs with religion - that it demands that we literally shut off our brains in order to believe in something that is completely irrational and for which there is no good evidence. Note, I said "good" evidence. I've heard a lot of bad evidence for god's existence - especially evidence that wasn't at all convincing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The difference between you and I is that I have an experience of God that overrides everything else so I am very adamant that there be NO DEFAULT.
There is no default regarding a truth claim. There is, however, a default with belief. Because eventually you have to pick one side or the other. One can't waffle on the "maybe fence" forever. Because if you do, then it shows that you're really not thinking about the issue at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Everything about God is in the BELIEF category, including yours.
Well, this is where we risk convoluting the issue, doing mental contortionist tricks in an effort to undermine the atheist position.
A belief in god - whichever god - is a belief. Atheism is the *lack* of belief.
Now, sure, we can begin the contortion tricks by claiming that not believing is a belief and end up with an infinite regression scenario and make it far more confusing that it is, but ... so be it.
However, even assuming atheism is a belief, it still isn't very similar at all to a belief in god. In fact, there shouldn't even *be* a term that defines someone as a person who doesn't believe in god. Atheism is, to a point, a pejorative term that Christians can use for further division. Religion is, at it's root, a divisive paradigm and always has been regardless of the god.
It's no different than a standard court case. If there is no evidence for X, then we don't assume that X is true but there just isn't any evidence. Instead, we assume that X is false until such time that it can be proven true. Absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence if there is a reasonable expectation of evidence being present. In the case of god, there is more than a reasonable expectation.
That's still not saying there is no god - or that X isn't true. But I'm not going to ignore the lack of evidence for X and just ... believe in X because, well, I want to. That's essentially a bias. Until X is shown to be true, I'm going to live my life and make decisions based on X being false. Whether X is *actually* false or not is irrelevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
We do not disagree about ANY of this, Shirina. Beliefs ABOUT God should have NO IMPACT on what others do or do not do. That is society's role in maintaining safety and order. Beliefs about God apply ONLY to each individual according to THEIR beliefs and have nothing to do with what ANY others do. We come into this life alone and we will leave it alone so any responsibility we have to God is between God and each of us individually.
Yep, exactly. I'm sure you've "heard" me say several times that religion should be left to each individual on what they want to believe. One of the biggest scourges of Mankind was when religion became organized, people with similar beliefs banned together and, through the tyranny of the majority or the tyranny of unequal wealth and power distribution, decided that everyone else should belief in their religion and their god, too.
That kind of invasive garbage is still going on today. Believe me, I don't run around trying to convert anyone to atheism. The only place I even discuss religion is right here. If you didn't already know me and met me in the street, you'd have no idea was even an atheist unless you outright asked what my religious beliefs were - because then I'd tell you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I get that, but I came to adopt my modified Christian narrative well AFTER my Synthesis of our Reality and our place in it had been sufficiently elucidated into a coherent whole. I searched the spiritual fossil record for indications that an overarching consciousness was indeed influencing the spiritual evolution of our understanding of God (our Reality). The ubiquitous Savior or Avatar template did indeed match my Synthesis and the Christian descriptions of a God who IS love matched my experiences in detail. That did require, tho, that I modify the barbaric and savage mainstream Christian rationale used to interpret what Jesus was and what He did which is NOT reconcilable with my Experiences or my Synthesis.
Granted, these days I just poke my head in here now and again and certainly don't post like I used to - which means if you've evolved your theory past what it was a year or two ago, I probably don't know about it.
However, you did say that the Christian God IS love - but I think you know we can disprove that as quickly as we can type. The closest thing Yahweh/Jehovah did that resembles love is to let the Hebrews cross the Red Sea - and even THAT just had to include some death, i.e. closing the waters over the Pharaoh's army.
But that's it. The entire rest of the time, God did nothing - literally nothing - else but hand down a massive amount of arbitrary rules, quite a number of them plain, and outright stupid ... or he was killing someone. Usually a lot of someones. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions - even the entire species save 8 people. And he didn't kill any of them out of love.
Nah, he killed them for a variety of more or less selfish reasons like a) making room for the Israelites to make a landgrab because, you know, those other people like the Canaanites or the Meridianites were just in the way, b) to make a point to someone or to set an example - like letting Satan kill Job's family just to see if Job would lose his faith, murdering the 1st born of Egypt to coerse Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, or slaughter 42 children for daring to make fun of one of God's prophets, c) he was just crotchety and couldn't figure out how to solve a problem without resorting to murder i.e. the Great Flood, and finally d) because someone(s) disobeyed thus tweaking his ego - which always makes God mad and thus sends him on a wrathful fit that usually ends with one or more cities getting destroyed.
God's favorite pastime is meting out punishments - which is almost always the same. Death. Death. Death. Unless you murder your own brother in which case you get a slap on the wrist. But failing to impregnate your dead brother's wife, stealing a little money from the church, or picking up sticks on the Sabbath and that's it, man. No leniency for you. Death. Death. Death.
At any rate, I'm baffled how you can equate a God who acts like that with love - especially agape love. Even Christ's so-called sacrifice is tainted to the stars and back with God's own selfishness, as I've said before.
Is there not another savior figure that is far more altruistic that God's avatar on earth? Some of those soldiers who threw themselves onto a grenade to save the lives of their squad mates is more deserving of being an example of love that anyone out of the Bible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Without too much ego, I believe my version of the Christian narrative is the most accurate description of the many earlier and less evolved Savior narratives because resonance and dissonance control and drive everything in our Reality.
Nah, it's not about ego to passionately argue a position you truly believe in. Some folks may not see the difference, but I do.
As I said earlier, if your Christian narrative has changed since the last time I saw it, then... okay. The problem is that it's still the Christian narrative, and I think that was all bunk, picked up and added to by various (and anonymous) authors for a thousand years. No matter how you may have changed it, I highly doubt that it makes your perspective any more true, but it does hinter it by hitching your wagon to an obviously false narrative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
If our species' consciousness has a role to play in the Cosmic drama, it revolves around its resonance with the overarching consciousness that establishes our Reality, IMO. That means at least one member of our species has to attain perfect resonance (identity) with the overarching consciousness to connect ALL human consciousness with it. The rest of us need only achieve some harmonic resonance with the one human consciousness that achieved perfect resonance. That is why the Jesus narrative "resonated" with me and I adopted it.
But do you honestly think that Jesus was the over-arching consciousness? I mean, I don't believe that the Jesus story is real - and yet I have experienced first-hand humanity's collective consciousness. It's why I give your paradigm far more credence than I do most others - though I know the dangers of staking everything on a personal experiece thus I won't claim your paradigm is "the Truth." It just appears to me that it is at least heading in the right direction.
Take care, Mystic
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...I have experienced in many 
...and Reality? N-o-t-h-i-n-g you see with your eyes open is real.
can become a pariah among the majority!!!! Yay!!!! 
