Truth about God

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I guess you are right...
...to some extent.

Indeed, faith and reason are at odds. By definition, faith is irrational. It is believing in something without having absolute, concrete proof. To an über rationalist such as you seem to be (I mean that as a compliment) this might seem as utter stupidity. From your standing point, I wouldn't also be able to fathom how someone would willingly castrate his own vitalistic tendencies for the sakes of some otherwordly playland (i.e. heaven), or try to rely on an imaginary concept (such as God) to try to make sense of life's adversities and misteries.

And yet, faith -as love, sadness, rage- is something that you feel. You can't reason your way into being faithful. Reason and logical thinking will always lead you to submit to the hard facts and evidence -as provided by science- that there is nothing else. But then again, reason and logical thinking would also discount the experience of loving someone, or grieving of despair after that loved one's death, as something not existing but in the mind of the individual experiencing those feelings...and still we love...and still we despair (and hope)...these feelings are also irrational...we just feel them...

I believe it is the same with faith. It is something that you feel and you have, or you don't. You will not get there (or have it) with your brain. You have to experience it with your heart. How could I explain it...it is like the wind...your don't see it, yet you feel it in your face when it blows.

I think it was Albert Einstein who said that there are two ways to see the universe: one as if nothing was a miracle, and the other as if everything was a miracle. It is your very own choice. Even if God does not exist, even if this life is all there is to existence, I choose to see everything as a miracle.

And this worldview has made all the difference.

P.S. I just want to add that I understand completely where you're coming from, mate. I hold a degree in philosophy and for endless years I tortured myself with all the existentialists, nihilists and post-structuralists...some things happened then in my life, that made me realize -intuitevely, perhaps- that there may be something else...and once I accepted this as a possibility, a whole new journey opened before me...

Believing in God is not the destination, the point of arrival. Faith is the journey. But first, you must want it.

reply to post by RadioKnecht

Believing in God is not the destination, the point of arrival. Faith is the journey. But first, you must want it.

And why would I want it? Why should I want him? Why?

Just listen to urself. Why would u want Him? Even tho u ask that u must realize one thing " He wants you". Even tho u may not want Him no matter what u do or say He still wants you. And He will continue to want u up until u can no longer be saved. Then I don't know He feels or does.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by RadioKnecht

 

And why would I want it? Why should I want him? Why?

edit on 5-3-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

Even though you and only you can find the answer to that question, in my very own experience, once I opened myself to the possibility -if just as a methodological premise- that there might be something else beyond what my perishable brain made of flesh allows me to reason and understand, the seed was planted and it grew on its own.

But indeed, then again, something very deep inside me had made up its mind and wanted it. I then willingly decided to take the plunge and start looking for God. And really, it was surprising how things then started to line up in that journey to find him. External things -"coincidences" if you will- started to reverberate in my innermost being. And then one day I just felt Him. And I must admit that that feeling is not always there, and even today I am ravaged at times by doubt. But those instants when I undoubtedly felt God inside me, every single thing in the universe made sense. It was really overwhelming.

I don't know, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

The truth (whatever you conceive that dodgy word to mean) smacks people in the face when they are ready for it. Not a second before and not a second after.

Either way it's ok, mate. "No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should".

I wish you the best of lucks in your own personal journey of making sense of it all.

reply to post by creativespirit

'God' is FALSE and A FAKE...

'The Real Truth' needs Real Proof beyond all reasonable doubt requiring adequate Primary Evidence.
'An Imaginary Truth' needs Imaginary or Real Proof beyond all reasonable doubt requiring adequate Primary Evidence.
'A Real Possibility' needs some Real Evidence.
'An Imaginary Possibility' needs Imaginary or Real Evidence.
'Anything' can be Imagined.
'A Fake' is The/A Truth (or A Possibility) with False Evidence..

God is An Imaginary Possibility or Truth without REAL PROOF so can REALLY at best be A Real POSSIBILITY - and the shared, imagined scriptures are god's main evidence of existence which is 2ndary / tirtiary - NO Primary Evidence of GOD!

'A Belief' is ALMOST an Imaginary Truth but it needs no (un)real primary evidence (though it SHOULD!) so is therefore an Imaginary Possibility...

Real & Imaginary Truths and Possibilities can be stored and transfered to other Real Imaginers (shared), can promote & demote real actions/effects so can therefore be part of a real action's cause...

God is REALLY FALSE - a SHARED Imaginary Possibility in REALITY until proven a Real Truth. God is indeed an imaginary monster.. Why Believe?
Ideas have REAL POWER when acted upon and shared. Most religions are mainly DEATH CULTS IMO.

reply to post by RadioKnecht


So you don't have a reason for me to believe in a god? Something a god could give me that I can't already give myself? Something I need, that I cannot live without?

reply to post by AfterInfinity


You are absolutely correct. I can not (and will not) give you a reason to believe in God, in the same manner as I can not give you reasons to fall in love with someone.

In order to experience them (i.e. God and love), you must first want them. Then life has a way of accomodating itself and things happen. Yeah, it all amounts to an exercise of your will. You either choose to want it, or you don't.

However, this much I will say, the experience of God (as is with love), is at the center of what we may call the "human experience". Endless rivers of ink throughout time have been spent debating this experience. Countless songs, paintings, carvings and sculptures have been made regarding the God issue. My point is that if you close yourself ab initio to the mere possibility of experiencing God, then you are also depriving yourself of one of the biggest experiences that make up for the human adventure in this universe. Very much in the same way that would happen if you closed yourself to the possibility of falling in love with someone, you would also be depriving yourself of one of the greatest experiences that life as we know it has to offer.

Think about it for a second.

I just want to add that God has little to do with religion. I can not stress that enough. God is an experience. You won't find him out there, in the phenomenological world. You won't find him in so called "holy" books. God is inside you.He is part of what Jung would call the numinous. The quest for God will take you to the center of your heart.

I guess all I am saying, is that even if you choose not to believe in him, just don't close yourself to the possibility. As with any other "ism", atheism may become a straightjacket for your mind and will determine how you experience life.

Don't be so dogmatic to reject God even if just as a possibility.

You never know, lightning might strike.

reply to post by RadioKnecht

You are absolutely correct. I can not (and will not) give you a reason to believe in God, in the same manner as I can not give you reasons to fall in love with someone.

In order to experience them (i.e. God and love), you must first want them. Then life has a way of accomodating itself and things happen. Yeah, it all amounts to an exercise of your will. You either choose to want it, or you don't.

In that case, let's try a different tact. Why do you want to believe in him?

However, this much I will say, the experience of God (as is with love), is at the center of what we may call the "human experience". Endless rivers of ink throughout time have been spent debating this experience. Countless songs, paintings, carvings and sculptures have been made regarding the God issue. My point is that if you close yourself ab initio to the mere possibility of experiencing God, then you are also depriving yourself of one of the biggest experiences that make up for the human adventure in this universe. Very much in the same way that would happen if you closed yourself to the possibility of falling in love with someone, you would also be depriving yourself of one of the greatest experiences that life as we know it has to offer.

True. Each sculpture, each painting, each book and each song reflects "God" differently. Not only does this suggest a subjective nature to the concept being conveyed, it also suggests something that originates from within and not from without - much like love or hope, as you have said. This says that divinity is not an external quality, but rather something we recognize within ourselves.

I just want to add that God has little to do with religion. I can not stress that enough. God is an experience. You won't find him out there, in the phenomenological world. You won't find him in so called "holy" books. God is inside you.He is part of what Jung would call the numinous. The quest for God will take you to the center of your heart.

It's funny you should say that. Lately, I've been feeling more and more as though divinity is more a state of mind than anything else. It is an emotional state, not a quality. And godliness is the maintenance of such a state. Of course, the next question is - what is the function of divinity? What exactly are the parameters of such a quality?

Well...if I knew that, would I still be here?

I guess all I am saying, is that even if you choose not to believe in him, just don't close yourself to the possibility. As with any other "ism", atheism may become a straightjacket for your mind and will determine how you experience life.

If there is a label for my particular spiritual outlook, I have not yet found it. And something tells me that perhaps I don't need to. All words do is pin the butterfly to the table. A knife through the wing. No longer can it fly, no longer can it do anything but show you how beautiful an idea can be when it's been stuffed and mounted. But no amount of quality taxidermy can ever measure up to the majesty of the bald eagle dancing on the wind. And just like that eagle, that butterfly, ideas are more beautiful when they are not imprisoned by the pitiful languages we have invented to portray them.

A painting, to me, is more beautiful than any words you can think of - because there's no limit to the words you can use for it. A millions years after we're dead and gone, another race could look at that picture and still find a way to describe it. Why? Because that picture isn't words. It is a visual impression of what the artist was thinking, and there is no definition to color or shape. It invokes an emotion within us, bypassing the barriers of spoken and written communication.

Spirituality should be more like art. Don't just give me an emotion, like handing out hard candies to children. Inspire me to feel all on my own. Make me light my own fire, instead of substituting your own blaze. That's the beauty of spirituality. You don't take your emotions and ideas from other people. You become inspired by that which speaks to you. A painting, a sculpture, a place in the woods, a river, a sunset. Something that strokes your soul and inspires you to sing. It's different with everyone. And that's what makes it a personal journey.

And that's why I disapprove of Christianity, because something that is so factory-model among so many different personalities, something that encourages similitude and discourages the expansion of the mind and heart and soul and imagination, something that keeps you perched on a limb more than it ever sends you soaring over the mountains and through canyons, something that forbids you to ever explore the storms and shadows that darken the strange lands of your world...that is an atrocity. If it teaches you not to learn, if it teaches you not to expand, then it is not healthy.

Go to a museum, find a painting that speaks to you, and explore it. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Try to imagine the impossible. Try to think of questions there are no answers to. Try to imagine a new color, or imagine being two people at once. Stretch yourself. Creation is the joy of living. Imagination is the key to creation. That's the joy of being divine. Not limitation - expansion.

This is all just my opinion, of course, but I hope the ATS'ers here understand what I'm trying to say. I hope it makes sense, because I can't be any clearer with it. This is my best effort to date. You're welcome.

..... What kind of God are you talking about?

The one that is written on a book by people?

Did you not already know religion can be very subjective? Everyone's version of "God" is different depending on what stories you heard.

When I see a thread called "truth about God" I just want to laugh, scientists still can't figure out whether or not our universe is an intelligent design and here we have an ATS thread called "truth about God".


When we actually KNOW something about the universe, such as origin of big bangs, use of wormholes, or even travel at the speed of light, THEN we can say we know something. Many scientists are starting to believe that our universe may have been created by an intelligent design.


Search up : Math of fractals, string theory

The greatest motivating fear in our human history is the notion that there is no reason behind our existence as sentients behind the mere chance of emergent behavior through complexity-seeking interactivity. Many would rather believe in anything than even to consciously formulate the question of whether there really is nothing beyond what we experience and do while we happen to be operational.

Truth is an interesting concept because it itself shares some logical underpinnings as the concept of a deity. If you believe that a shared reality exists between you and I, as in the minimal case, we're two independent agents of action, then there must be a true state of reality outside of our subjectivity wherein that interaction happens. As an aside, usually some intolerable wank will bring up the idea that due to our subjectivity, we can't prove anything beyond our own senses (to whom, I wonder?), or solipsism, at this point, which while logically true, and while an oddity, ceases to be useful in meaningful conversation other than to make a point about the logical absurdity of sentience.

Once that hurdle of solipsism is passed, then there is already a location wherein a deity could reside and no agent need know. Such a place is in the reality that we sometimes find exists outside of either of our subjectivity. If you've ever found out that both your memory and another's memory about an event was not correct, then you've found such a place.

The problem with this as far as deities go is that the ones who reside in such a place have had their domain increasingly reduced as there are more of us experiencing reality and comparing our notes about it. There will always be room for them, but the obvious corollary is that this means those who define God as human intellect, or the fire, or the light, as a few symbols used, have been experiencing just as much an increase in the domain of that conceptual deity. You see, the corpus of knowledge that constitutes the basis of that kind of religion increases at a staggering rate compared to the supernatural based. Though it is also prone to deception, and inaccuracy, it is at the very least one assertion less unproveable than the supernatural. If you decide to ignore solipsism for the sake of not having to declare nothing proveable, then the constant testing of our reality and comparing results is as close as one can get to zero unproveable assertions.

Those who define God as something like our sun, which grants warmth, life, protection, and most important of all, variation, have perhaps experienced a bit more understanding due to greater ability to observe astronomical events. Mostly the core tenets of this time of solar chain reaction we're all riding remains ever as it was, though. Do you owe the sun anything for it happening to have eventually resulted in your being able to experience it? I'm happy that the sun is there, but if it were not, who would be, to be in anguish? It is in like manner that some assert that we owe deference to a still-interested creator God, and they admonish that to consider otherwise is an intolerable arrogance. Cui bono?

With any environment that has at least two independent actors, and a variation, there eventually arises a power imbalance. If your goal as an actor is to obtain that power, or at the very least to not be abused by such power, then you must be fully versed in deception and subversion to the point where nothing is too sacred to question. Not even your core values should escape scrutiny. There is a constant momentum of control exercised in our world, and many may never fully become aware of all forms, much less to a coexistence, independence, or mastery. There are agents better prepared to get and utilize control, and some will use any means at their disposal. Is it more possible to serve two masters, or none? Is it even possible to serve no masters? It is possible to try.

In becoming a self-critic, with no questions too blasphemous to consider, and self determination in finding the answer, one learns truth over time as the power structure telling you what to believe, what to think, what is, becomes obsolete to the process. Even intellect worship will lead you astray from truth, as it evaporates the humility required to be frequently wrong on the ceaseless path toward truth.

So, when I say that the greatest motivating fear is that of there being no reason, no cause, I believe that contemplating such an idea can create a panicked need to replace it with any other concept, from oneself or others.

If it isn't apparent by now, I would describe my God as truth. So it's a distinctly interesting feeling to ponder the meaning of the truth of God, and how to express the concept. As long as I'm being candid, I have to say that I feel a bit trepidatious about my actually submitting this post, as I feel like I got more out of writing it than others will through reading it. Nevertheless, thanks for doing so.

reply to post by OminousZ


I think the most terrifying truth that could ever be revealed is that possibility that the only thing that is real is our belief. Belief determines truth, and truth determines reality according to our perceptions.

So when we find out that all of reality is based on a simple matter of belief, the conjunction of responsibility and deception at such a personal level completely overloads every single insecurity we have ever fostered. And that would lead to a possible collapse of the psyche, whether it manifest as sociopathic tendencies or manic depression or just turn completely catatonic.

To find out that we are literally the gods of our own little worlds, as contained within the translation centers of our brain, the cores that register and interpret the electrical signals that become our thoughts and feelings and perceptions, that decrypt the data from physical interaction and encrypt more data in order to regulate our bodily functions, and that nothing outside is technically real or reliable because not even we know ourselves to the deepest level of our subconscious...it would break a lot of people. Scare a lot of people. Even anger a lot of people. The deepest level of anarchy, right there.

Welcome to the Matrix.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by RadioKnecht

 

So you don't have a reason for me to believe in a god? Something a god could give me that I can't already give myself? Something I need, that I cannot live without?

edit on 5-3-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

You have just walked into the idea that
the SUN is God.
Because it is.

reply to post by sealing

You have just walked into the idea that
the SUN is God.
Because it is.

It is never wise to use any one expression of a concept to define the entirety of that concept. You may as well use the Ford Explorer to define the entirety of the concept of "motorized vehicles".

With that said, I don't disagree. But perhaps you should look a little deeper into that idea.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

You might be onto something there. Not least of which is because that would be logically more dramatic, but also because of how I usually react to that idea as even exhibited in my previous post. Maybe that is due in part to the emotional gut reaction against it I would feel if it were indeed proven true.

Well Im just having fun with it AfterInfinity.
I have looked into this idea for 30 years.
It's what secret societies know, and grumpy old
powerful men don't waste their time if there are no results haha.

The Sun is an intelligent sentient being.
How about this check list?
1.It creates and sustains ALL life on Earth
2. Can't look directly at the Sun/God
3. the Suns' birthday is Dec.25th
4. You are literally made of the Sun. It is in you.
5. At the Earths core is a piece of the Sun.
It goes on and on.

If you add it all up, more points to the Sun being God
than any human counterpart has ever garnered .

reply to post by sealing


It's definitely a more plausible theory than anything the Judaics have ever come up with.

reply to post by OminousZ

You might be onto something there. Not least of which is because that would be logically more dramatic, but also because of how I usually react to that idea as even exhibited in my previous post. Maybe that is due in part to the emotional gut reaction against it I would feel if it were indeed proven true.

Because we'd hate to think that we are literally a figment of our own perception, like a closed-circuit dream.

reply to post by creativespirit


Star and Flag for seeing what the bible actually teaches...

reply to post by creativespirit


He hates you so much that he allows you to bad mouth God and say God is a monster. he also gives you the ability to choose instead of being a souless little doll.

God didn't have to create anything. If God really was a monster he would crush you instantly.

YOu are butthurt that God doesn't do things as you see fit. Instead of hating on God just do what many others do and just not believe God exists.

reply to post by votan

YOu are butthurt that God doesn't do things as you see fit. Instead of hating on God just do what many others do and just not believe God exists.

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I'd like to answer it anyway because I have gotten this response before.

Since the Judaic god isn't real, it makes a perfect punching bag as an outlet for my growing aggravation at the stupidity that appears to be infecting the human race at an alarming rate. And if he is real...well, thanks a lot! We have enough trouble without you trying to test us all the time. Take a holiday, you drunken egotistical psychopath! *punch*

So, yeah. If he doesn't like it, he knows where to aim his lightning.