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Faith in God

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David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
You both appear to have experiential evidence.

Yes, the question does assume lack of evidence, because there are those who do believe with no evidence aside from a book. I suppose my question was more or less direct toward them.
Well that approach is insanity. So you are listening to folk who are off the deep end. I say they have an extremly serious OGD disorder and i would avoid that. OGD is "Oh God Did it" but the upside you can get insight to yourself from it. Dont do that. Books are funny in all forms they lead to strange variations like OSD. "Oh Sience Did it" or "OMD" "Oh Math Did it"
very sever mental disordering going on it usually starts with "I THINK".
after that totally robotic automatic responses really. They are convinced they are thinking!!!!

No i say there is bigger than "i think" though most deny it!

Nature. i am Big on time outs from the smart world of "I THINK - OGD OSD OMD" And get out and getting reaquainted with old friends. Trees are my fellow beings that feound me. They are not just growing $. Look a whole forest of $€¥¢. No thats OMD. look they are a macjine that moves water from the ground to the canopy the leaves do photo synthesis it converts into air that we breathe. That is OSD. Or look kts created by a wizard intelligently thats OGD.

So i would say OGD OSD OMD is a serious issue to overcome. Breathing is a good start. Baby steps maybe realizing you are life they are life and maybe we are being pretty stupid in our smart!
 

Bob the Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
Faith is built on nothing but evidence.

If it was not, then Faith would be very weak with no foundation, easily broken.

Regards Tony

But it IS easily broken! Unless you also allow that cultural conditioning is a factor too.

Brainwashing is sometimes quite difficult to dislodge-- and not so easily broken.

But faith is pretty easy to quash-- else no many of the "faithful" would never experience the anguish of doubt.

They doubt because they have no useful evidence.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The experience of god. Or what one interprets as
that?
It would be what one interprets as God, or something which is equally as transcendent and absolute which cannot truly be named. People call that God because that word avails itself to describe something so utterly beyond comparison. Not everyone uses that word, but the descriptions of the experience are closely related.

We read about how native americans would do such
as to fast and chant, by themselves on some hilltop.
Spirit quest.
Such practices can assist in opening oneself up to that, but the experience is not a product of that. It can happen spontaneously, without any sort of ritual assists, trainings, practices, etc. In my own first experience, it was before I knew anything about religious beliefs and practices. It literally was like a bolt of lightning in the middle of the day, prior to any religious teachings or practices, such as meditation.

Eventually, guaranteed, they are going to hallucinate.
My own experiences of the Divine Reality (a better word than "God", which carries with it the baggage of a particular anthropomorphic deity form from our cultural mythologies), cannot be equated with an hallucination. The experience of an hallucination is recognized after the fact that you were on some sort of drug-induced trip, seeing fantastical things, having your understanding of your world bent and distorted, which can lead someone to the realization that truth is not what we necessarily assume in our normal everyday thoughts and perceptions about it. While that can be spiritually powerful insights, it's not the same thing as the direct experience of God, or Divine Reality.

The experience of a hallucination is recognized as an hallucination after the fact. The experience of "God" on the other hand is typically described as more real than what we call reality. It is unmistakably recognized as Absolute Reality, Ultimate Truth, Reality laid bare, etc. The effects of that is that one's entire life is shaken to the core and forever no longer the same. Hence why I loved and quoted her saying, "hitting a mirror with a rock shatters the mirror", as that pretty much describes it. A hallucination is a passing experience. The experience of the Divine indelibly leaves its imprint upon you, and is never doubted as to its authenticity. Every other belief I've had about it over the years has been doubted, but never that what I experienced was real and no hallucination.

One does not spend 40 years of their life trying to find their way back to that Source of All That Is, because they had a hallucination in a sweat lodge or taking some LSD. One does not make the central core of their life having another drug trip. That would be too easy. Just drop another hit of whatever you took. While those can be useful aids as part of a spiritual quest in order to assist in one letting go of enough of the distractions of normal life in order to be opened to it, to get themselves to allow it in themselves, they do not produce it. It is rather a natural condition,inside of all of us, like riding a bicycle under your own inner sense of balance, versus the "assists" of training wheels teaching you how to find your own balance.

Or, more mundane, on a stroll across campus
with another girl, a pretty autumn leaf fluttered
down at our feet. She picked it up, and exclaimed-
"Oh, look, God has sent us a Sign! See the three parts?
It represents the Holy Trinity!

"So why does it have these two smaller parts?"
I asked.
She had an explanation for that, the pentarch or
whatever.
Haha! I love it. :) Yes, that's just magical thinking. It's trying to see patterns and evidences of some overarching, meta-truth to the mysteries of life through a curious mind. That's sort of a baby step, dabbling in the deeper questions of what is the nature of this Mystery we call life. But it is using the mind to "think" its way through it, using clumsy trying to find signs, envisioning the Divine as a sort of projection of a super-being, like a really, really big "guy in the sky" sort of external thing, or object, or entity.

Those are not the direct experience of the Divine. They are not transcendent experiences. Now, if that some girl who was moments ago was using the wings of her imagination to try to realize the Divine Reality through that, were to abruptly and suddenly have an actual experience of "God", then she would instantly realize that that was an illusion of her mind, as was everything else she ever thought was real or true about herself, others, or the reality of the world she lived in. She would never be the same again, and would never once again need to look for "signs". What would be the point, when you already have tasted Reality, swallowing the entire Ocean in a single gulp? She would be like, "Signs? Don't be ridiculous."

It's a little more complex and nuanced than all that, but it does capture the stark differences. One imagines God or the Divine to be outside of oneself, and then you end up with all these beliefs and practices to move from point A to a supposed point Z. But a better visualization is to realize that point A and Z, and all points in between are all on the same spot we are standing, and you don't move anywhere. It's like a warp drive engine which bends space, and all you do is just step off point A and you are already at point Z. It's never been anywhere other that where you are, and who, and what you, and everything else, already fully is.

Looking for signs, is just a devise of the mind, trying to get you to recognize the Truth you already are. But it seems such a distance, when you believe A is the truth of your reality, and Z a faith glow on the horizon, or just madness if you've concluded it "doesn't exist".
 

Bob the Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
Who says there's no evidence? Are you up-to-date on your research? Here's some recommended reading:

"The Historical Jesus," by scholar Dr. Gary Habermas;

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Dr. Craig Keener

"New Evidence that Demands a Verdict," by former skeptic Josh McDowell;

"Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics," by Dr. Norman Geisler;

"The Case for Christ," by Lee Strobel," and

"The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus," by Dr. Gary Habermas.

“Miracles – The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts,” by Craig S. Keener

“The Case for Miracles,” by Lee Strobel

None of that constitutes "evidence" -- all of that is speculation, false narrative and "because it feels good".

Each of those author's claims have long been debunked-- especially Habermas and Keener's works.

And apologgetics? If god were real, and the bible is god's word-- who would need to APOLOGIZE for it? Hmmm?

The rest are all feel-good, personal-experience stuff-- not evidence. Just preaching to the choirs.
 

Bob the Unbeliever

Well-Known Member

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Do you have faith in God?

While I can appreciate such faith in the presence of evidence, in the absence of any evidence (experiential, empirical, or objective), why do you have faith?

As a biblical Christian, I have all three types of evidence for God. Your question is moot--along with the soon-coming responses of skeptical trolls on RF!
 

SalixIncendium

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि
Staff member
Premium Member
As a biblical Christian, I have all three types of evidence for God. Your question is moot--along with the soon-coming responses of skeptical trolls on RF!

Finally someone comes forth with objective evidence!

This is exciting! I can’t wait for you to post it!
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
I am not sure what you mean by faith in love? Love can lead you up the garden path,imo.
and that is the power of love has over people, even people of reason sometime go mad. i am a servant to love


Song of Solomon 8:6
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.



These Are the 7 Types of Love


8 Different Types of Love According to the Ancient Greeks ⋆ LonerWolf




Densities
The creation has seven levels, or densities; the eighth density forming the first density of the next octave of experience, just as the eighth note of a musical scale begins a new octave (16.51, 28.15). Between seventh and eight densities the creation re-merges in a period of timeless, formless unity with the Creator (28.16). It is Ra’s understanding that “the ways of the octave are without time; that is, there are seven densities in each creation infinitely.” They point out, though, that the limits of their knowledge are narrow (78.15).




 

Audie

Veteran Member
Finally someone comes forth with objective evidence!

This is exciting! I can’t wait for you to post it!

I hear too about objective evidence that ToE
is false, but never ever does it get posted.

Not wanting to share the Nobel, I'd guess.
 

Bob the Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
As a biblical Christian, I have all three types of evidence for God. Your question is moot--along with the soon-coming responses of skeptical trolls on RF!


By "all three" did you mean "because you say so" and "because you, personally think so" and "You just feel it, so it must be so!"
 
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