Does God Really Exist???

One point that I will make: This brings up an interesting question. On the average, do people want God to exist by nature, Not want God to exist, or are neutral. I maintain, using scripture as my source, that the natural mind does NOT want God to exist, since it trumps our freedom of choice.

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I am not mis-representing you Dan, as you can see above you agreed we are all possibly deluded.

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Mike.I have no problem with you quoting me as saying we are all possibly deluded. But you are taking it out of context.I have made it clear, several times, that atheists and Christians do not have an equal possibility of being deluded. You have used quotes by me to suggest that I am saying we do.So one more time... it is possible that atheists are deluded, in the same way that it is possible that there are twelve invisible dancing racoons on my desk right at this second. It is far more likely that Christians are deluded.As always, disagree if you want. But argue against what I actually said.

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So what is so bad about me saying:

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" Dan said it is possible that everyone is delusional, therefore we all stand a chance of being. "

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You left off half your quote, Mike. I've added emphasis to make things clear. I neither said that, nor did my words imply anything of the sort.

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

Dan, you remember my point about the two sources of wisdom? How to some it is the sum of human intellect. How to others, it is a divine source? And I am saying that your source, human wisdom, does not trump my source. Despite the fact that my source is not defineable by your standard, you cannot claim a greater probability of truth or wisdom.
I cannot claim it either, but my God can. Thus, between you and I, there is an equal probability of delusion. Our sources cancel each other out in this argument.

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And I am saying that your source, human wisdom, does not trump my source.

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The existence of your source is what is at issue here.In order to accept this statement, we must first accept that your divine source exists, then use it to determine the viability of your divine source.In other words, use an assumption that God exists to show that God exists.Circular logic at its finest.

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

Besides which, I have never once claimed that my human wisdom is what shows that there is no God. Rather it is a complete lack of knowledge for or against.What we see is what we know is there. If someone is suggesting something other than what we see, they need to provide some sort of evidence that it is there. Otherwise we just fall back on what we can see.So let's see... lookin' around at what I see... lookin' around... no God.How about that.No dancing racoons either.

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

Hmmm... Now Danny... Don't go dissing me for quoting my source!~

Uh oh... Clearly Galactus did come to eat the Earth back in the sixties, but was repelled by the Fantastic Four. I shouldn't have scoffed at that guy who said it really happened.After all, here's a published work saying it did!

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

And speaking to you now as an American, I say that if Galactus has changed your life, you have a case for trumpeting his book! Viva la Free speech!

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And speaking to you now as an American, I say that if Galactus has changed your life, you have a case for trumpeting his book! Viva la Free speech!

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You're mixing up "the right to" with "a case for".As it happens, Galactus don't matter worth a damn for me. But Jack Kirby does. And yeah, I trumpet the merits of Jack Kirby every chance I get.When I do, I'm sure to talk about technique... about innovation... about work output... about the reasons I can proclaim Jack Kirby to be wonderful.What I do not say is, "trust me guy, I've read his stuff. He's great. No, trust me here, you either have to get it or you don't. But whether you get it or not, he's still great. What do you mean how do I know he's great? Yeesh, when you understand how great he is, you'll see why he's great, okay?"It's called "building a case for an idea, and arguing it on its merits."

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

CreationMan
I don't keep up with his type work (I'm not that smart)or him personally, but I just assumed he was a believer in God. I don't know if Carl Sagan said "THE COSMOS IS ALL THAT IS, EVER WAS, OR EVER WILL BE". But I do know this, very shortly before his death he said there has to be something out there. He was refering to a supreme being, a god. I'm am also assuming by that statement that previously he thought otherwise. At death's door we sometimes re-examine our thoughts and beliefs. If there is a god out there, the statement is false regardless of who said it.
Charlie

:ae:You note, This is not how I was taught to do science. I was taught that there are an infinite number of equally good explanations for any finite data set. So, explanatory power tells us nothing. But, predictive power does count. Thus, when a prayer study (and there have been several with good controls and rigorous measurement of effects) predicts a surprising outcome, the theoretical base for the prayer study (that there is a God answering prayers, often by delivering the system from malignant spiritual beings) gains in credibility.You can choose to explain away the prayer studies, of course. But the scientific response, since it is so easy, is to try to repeat the study yourself. But, I recall that you have already done some of this, with no confirmation. My experience was otherwise. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what the future brings.Now, how about those near-death studies, with the hypothermia, etc.?
Many people sense an increase in the plausibility of the orthodox theology hypothesis from those studies. Some people report going to a bad place, (Hell?), others to a good place. Seeing other spiritual beings. Couldn't this be considered evidence?Stephen

Has your mind ever played tricks on you? Have you ever been talking to someone in your sleep and wake up to realize that you are just talking to yourself? Ever get that "weightless" feeling right before you fall asleep? Ever have a dream or a daydream that incorporates something that you do on a routine basis into an unusual or incomprehensible situation? Ever wake up and realize that you cannot move--it might only take a second, but it seems like forever? How about right before falling asleep or right after waking up, you see a spirit or an alien or become deathly afraid that the monster from the movie you just watched is in the corner or outside the window?My point--weird things happen to you when you are not fully awake. It is like your brain is having a hard time realizing if it is still in dream mode or fully aware mode. I am sure there is a chemical explanation for this, like with how LSD or THC or mescalin affect the brain, causing the user to see colors, have distorted vision, etc. These altered mental states can also be brought about by disease, malnutrition, or dehydration. More than likely, a near death experience is just like sleep paralysis or some other altered mental state.Evidence of heaven or hell? The images that the people have seen are just like the images they see in a dream or a dreamlike state, meaning that these images were in the brain somewhere already. Our brains have evolved to be "jump to conclusions" machines. In order to survive, our ancestors had to be able to react to many external stimuli without thinking too much about "whether that cave bear is going to eat me or not". We are still programmed that way. We tend to match strange occurances with things we think we already know without filtering the results first. If I have been told that people see a white light at the end of a tunnel or that they see a firey lake or a peaceful meadow when they die, subconsciously I will hold onto that notion and when I have a near death experience, my brain jumps me to one of those conclusions. Some people who have near death experiences want to believe very strongly that they are going to a better place or that death is not the end. In convincing themselves of this, these people experience it in dreams, during sleep paralysis, in near death experiences, and in other altered states of consciousness.Some people might just be suffering from the "serial killer's grandmother syndrome".

Hitchy,Good post. When people ask me how I hear God speaking, I have learned to relate it to people talking in a dream. Something happens in the brain, not evidently involving the eardrums, that gives the distinct impression that someone is talking.So, what are dreams? Your hypothesis sounds interesting, and I hope we can get some predictions from it, to test its plausibility. In trying to separate pizza dreams from God talking to me, I was at first impressed at the effect the voice had on me. It's like the NDE's that have been studied. The people that have them normally undergo a dramatic change of life. (I'm referring to the scandinavian study published in Nature a couple of years ago.). When God spoke to me, everything about my life changed, overnight. Later, I heard about pending "miracles" which I then observed. Now, I "know" His voice.But, it would be interesting to do a strong inference with your hypothesis and mine. The PEAR lab's work suggests that people do have some idea of future events, so that what I am interpreting as the "voice of God" is just a dream voice talking about some future event that is going to happen.While it is in any way a moot point, of course, the considerate thing to do is give God credit for it. If He is out there, He enjoys being appreciated. The things He told me He would do if I prayed a certain way, were really good things, that I am grateful for. I can even sense Him being pleased that I thank Him for telling me what to do to get those things to happen.But, scientifically, we will have to wait for strong inference testing of the two hypotheses to separate their relative plausibilities.Stephen

Phatboy wrote:

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This brings up an interesting question. On the average, do people want God to exist by nature, Not want God to exist, or are neutral. I maintain, using scripture as my source, that the natural mind does NOT want God to exist, since it trumps our freedom of choice.

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Thanks for the rather pointless Biblical quote.Once again the scripture is successful and adequate for providng the simple logic necessary to establish a religion, but fails under closer analysis.I can rebut your claim that the natural mind does not want God to exist, ironically, with one of the classic Christian arguments for the existence of God: the vast majority of people in the world believe in a God, therefore he must exist. Statistically it's about 90% of all the people in the world that have "natural minds" strongly desiring a God to exist, so your statement is clearly wrong.Homepage - adherentsI further rebut this statment as evidence of particular God, because there is phenomenal disagreement about that God (or Gods), even within the one religion. The 90% evidences a pre-disposition of mortal and self conscious humans to believe in a God, but does not evidence at all the existence of any particular God. That comes down to the individual arguments and evidences of each religion (almost all of which are mutuallly exclusive).You'll then claim that because Christianity is a minority across the world, that all those non-Christians are denying the one true God as per your particular Biblical interpretation. People statistically believe in a particular faith because of where they are born. If you were born in the Middle East, chances are you'd be a Muslim and be now arguing it's validity and be claiming that the majority of the world reject your religion.Freedom of choice?
1) There have been enough arguments on this board about the Bible concept of free will, that have established that dodgey Bible logic rules out anything but the mere illusion of free will (because of an Omnipotent God who knows the future).2) My free will (as I perceive it) is still constrained without the belief in a Christian God. It is constrained by laws and my own morality. I don't reject the Christian idea of a God on that basis. Indeed if that God exists, and eternal life was actually on offer there would be logically no price too high to pay in this life, in order to obtain it.

Arrrrgh! Double post. Sorry![This message has been edited by Gilgamesh, 02-25-2004]