The one that cannot be distinguished from the feelings one has when one's favorite sports team wins the tournament? That powerful, all pervasive, cosmic deity? Is that the one you're talking about?
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Evidence for God?
- Thread starter The Sum of Awe
- Start date
The one that cannot be distinguished from the feelings one has when one's favorite sports team wins the tournament? That powerful, all pervasive, cosmic deity? Is that the one you're talking about?
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
Well, the other one I won't debate either. Supposing some "other" caused the matter to expand, I doubt it's conscious and therefore not worth calling God or worshiping.
Gods discovered by personal experience that cannot be proven objectively aren't worth debating either. I have several of them that are equally real and totally non-existent.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
More than that... It's not an excitement feeling... I would tell you which feeling it closest relates to, though I've tried to fit it with all that I know but it isn't any of them... It's not a good or bad or neutral feeling.
outhouse
Atheistically
just saying man creates deitys, it is our historical past. They are cast aside and no longer worshipped as fast as they were created, when they are no longer of use to a culture.
I guess my point was do you recognize past deitys as being created by man.? since it fit a need, it may have not been imagination.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
No, I don't.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Why does God have to be conscious? Why do you have to worship Based God?
True, but that's why I'm saying either try what I did or ignore the experience.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
outhouse
Atheistically
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
If you've ever read Neil Gaiman, I believe in something similar.fair enough
valid explanation
But that's an organic process, not simple invention.
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
lol To be totally honest, my entire time as a Christian I never felt God or Jesus. I felt the angels. They were real to me. The same goes for children and their imaginary friends.
I'd be truly surprised to find a theist who could say without flinching that they feel their god(s).
I'd be truly surprised to find a theist who could say without flinching that they feel their god(s).
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
If panentheists count, pleased to surprise you.
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
Seeing as I used to be one of them, I don't.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Seeing as I used to be one of them, I don't.
Don't what? Count panentheists as theists?
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
Well, more pantheist than theist IMO.
Don't what? Count panentheists as theists?
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
You've lost me.
Were you saying that you don't consider pan(en)theists to be theists?
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Anymore debates against the first at least, that we can clearly talk about without experience?
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Cool, then. I prefer precision.
You're conflating two religiosities. Each originates in different, distinct neurological processes and events. One religiosity produces spirits, demons, dead saints, dead ancestors, gods, and so forth. People who come at it from that religiosity "feel" the presence of spirits or gods in much the same way you might now and then have a sudden, fleeting impression someone is looking over your shoulder when no one is actually there. It's a common brain fart.
There is another religiosity -- totally separate neurological processes. The second religiosity is behind mysticism. Think Zen satori, Taoist illumination, the Buddha's experience of nirvana. It's a much, much rarer brain fart.
Mystical experiences of "ultimate reality", so to speak, resemble religious experiences about as much as raw passionate sex resembles a high school biology text book on reproduction.
Check out the life of Thomas Aquinas. He spent years writing clever commentaries on god. Volumes of theology. Then he had a mystical experience. He shut up at once. Quit talking theology. Quit writing theology. And said, "Everything I have ever written now seems like straw to me."
Anyone who thinks mystical experiences are the same as religious experiences is a virgin. They ain't never been laid.
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