Evidence that God exists

[Rhizomorph13]

Anto,

My example of "name it claim it" religion was an example of kooky ideas. The fact that you find it kooky means you still have some rational ability. Your ideas sound just as kooky only they go against natural human drives, so they are more destructive.

I know, it's fucked up lol. However we're not talking about your will in reality, we're talking about the many, often times conflicting, wills of the body. The stomach says, 'feed me', the throat says, 'quench me', the genitalia say, 'sqeeze me' etc. These wills take away from our own happiness, so the irony is, by giving up these wills, by giving up that life, we gain new life and a new, free will, the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Creation. Remember that we aren't giving up our will to another human, or biological entity, we're giving up our biological (and psychological) wills to allow the Will of Creation to drive us, and the Will of Creation, the Holy Spirit, is the Will of Nature.

It's about perfectly adapting to this reality. What is the first will of life, the primal urge, undiluted by sexual desire, the desire to consume, the desire to possess. What is the will of the first ever living organism on this planet, with neither stomach nor genitalia? It is a command, the Holy Spirit, the Word spoken by God in the beginning, 'There shalt not be nothing!', 'I cannot die, there shall be no death, I shall live, I shall create, I shall struggle and overcome!'

It's about living true to life through the get desire, the great Spirit of Creation, undiluted by the minor desires that have accumulated over the past 4 billion years (apparently life may have begun as early as that, although to be conservative let's say 3.5 billion)

We are not submitting to an intelligence, ordering our every action and thought, we are submitting to a spirit, an energy, not just that, but the Greatest Energy, that which creates and sutains the universe itself, and that energy becomes our own, that fire burns in our hearts, and we then order that energy, we provide the intelligence with that Spirit.

And of the wills that comprimise our integrity, it's the psychological wills which are the most difficult to control and snuff out.

How can you process this obvious bullshit into a rational direction in life? I bet you just do whatever the fuck you want and then label it god's will after the fact.

Look, let's assume there is a god that created the universe just for fun. Why wouldn't you believe that he created all those drives you are shunning?

Also you have it backwards! Our drives are what give us pleasure! I love eating, I love drinking, and the fact that your genitalia says to "squeeze me" well, you're doing it wrong! The fact that you hold a belief that goes so entirly against your urges will ultimatly cause cognitive dissonance.

That is part of religious practices around the world. Deny yourself what you really want and your body will create experiences to fill the void. Abstain from sex and your dream life will become very vivid! Avoid talking and your mind will charge around in you big empty head in search of stimulation.

I do have a better definition for god! Thanks for asking!

God is imaginary!™

Rhizo

[Beholden]

Let us not forget there are also many religious subsects that promote listening to what your body wants in order to gain fulfillment. For some bizarre reason, most of the hard-core religious people seem to think it's more fun the other way around... Then there is, of course, the rampant hypocrisy of those indulging their pleasures while promoting abstinace from them. ;-)

[Edwardo Piet]

By the way, a thumbs up for introducing the FSM into the arguement, very rational indeed.

You didn't address my argument at all, you just asserted that bringing the FSM up is irrational without any given reason.

This is why I brought up the FSM, I said:

[...]The burden of proof is on the positive belief without evidence.

There needs to be evidence for God first, before there can be evidence against him.

you responded with:

The burden of proof is on both hypothesis, so it's "irrational" either way.

I responded, asking you if you believe in the FSM, and then:

[...]
2. If you don't, then are you irrational, and is the burden of proof on you, despite the fact you have no evidence for it so it's perfectly understandable to not believe in it? And assuming that that, is perfectly understandable - why don't you believe the same logic applies to God?

So what I'm doing here is asking if it's irrational to disbelieve in the FSM, that it's 'irrational either way', as you say. Assuming you are applying identical logic to the FSM as to God. And if not, why?

EvF

[Anto Kennedy]

Your ideas sound just as kooky only they go against natural human drives, so they are more destructive.

There are natural human inhibitions too. I only say not to be governed by thw minor wills lest you adbandon the great will of humans, the will to overcome, or if you'd like Neitczhe's word for it, Will to Power, The Great Will.

How can you process this obvious bullshit into a rational direction in life? I bet you just do whatever the fuck you want and then label it god's will after the fact.

Pretty much, of course now that I'm not governed by the minor wills, I no longer "want", or should I say my body no longer wants constant indulgence. When you no longer seek pleasure, nor disdian pain, then you are free to act freely, without fear and without narrow self-interest (self interest in terms of specific organs of the body)

Look, let's assume there is a god that created the universe just for fun. Why wouldn't you believe that he created all those drives you are shunning?

You assume that I believe in Intelligent Design or in Young Earth Creationism. I don't.

I believe in natural selection, as such I believe the minor wills to have accumalated over time, being formed for a specific environment at a specific time in our evolution, and that these wills are no longer suitable to our current circumstances in the 21st Century.

I no longer need to fuck anything and everything at any given opportunity just for my genes to survive. Sex is about creation, not pleasure; pleasure is only a means by which the body motivates (wills) you into having sex.

Also you have it backwards! Our drives are what give us pleasure!

Pleasure, pain, it's all the same. Just a sensation that will pass away.

The fact that you hold a belief that goes so entirly against your urges will ultimatly cause cognitive dissonance.

The urges go against my will, not the other way around. You have to tame the beast, as you tame a horse or a dog, your body is an animal and it needs to be mastered to make best use of it, otherwise it will hurt you.

And I must inform you that I do not deny my urges, I am indifferent to them. If I'm hungry, I may or may not eat, but I'll decide, not my stomach. The reason we have so many fat fucks in the world is because people are being encouraged to indulge themselves and forget about any form of self-control (which is good for business, plenty of profit I suppose)

Don't forget, there are natural inhibitions too, and these natural inhibitions are what makes us human, what has made us the dominant species on the planet, which gives us our power and freedom in the world.

That is part of religious practices around the world. Deny yourself what you really want and your body will create experiences to fill the void.

Deny nothing, only do not be subject to you're urges. Allow them to be, but do not act on them unless you have reasoned to do so. Reason, I thought atheists would understand what I'm talking about.

I do have a better definition for god! Thanks for asking!

God is imaginary!™

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world,[1][2][3] and it also plays a key role in the learning process.

Imagination is the faculty through which we encounter everything. The things that we touch, see and hear coalesce into a "picture" via our imagination.

It is accepted as the innate ability and process of inventing partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world.[citation needed] The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind, percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination.

The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis. Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are constructed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science.

Imagination is an experimental partition of the mind used to create theories and ideas based on functions. Taking objects from real perceptions, the imagination uses complex IF-functions to create new or revised ideas. This part of the mind is vital to developing better and easier ways to accomplish old and new tasks. These experimental ideas can be safely conducted inside a virtual world and then, if the idea is probable and the function is true, the idea can be actualized in reality. Imagination is the key to new development of the mind and can be shared with others, progressing collectively.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination

An object of the mind is an object which exists in the imagination, but can only be represented or modeled in the real world. Some such objects are mathematical abstractions, literary concepts, or fictional scenarios.

Closely related are intentional objects, what thoughts and feelings are about, even if they are not about anything real (such as thoughts about unicorns, or feeling of apprehension about a dental appointment which is subsequently cancelled).[1] However, intentional objects can coincide with real objects (as in thoughts about horses, or a feeling of regret about a missed appointment).

Mathematics and geometry describe abstract objects that sometimes correspond to familiar shapes, and sometimes do not. Circles, triangles, rectangles, and so forth describe two-dimensional shapes that are often found in the real world. However, mathematical formulas do not describe individual physical circles, triangles, or rectangles. They describe ideal shapes that are objects of the mind. The incredible precision of mathematical expression permits a vast applicability of mental abstractions to real life situations.

Social reality is composed of many standards and inventions that facilitate communication, but which are ultimately objects of the mind. For example, money is an object of the mind which currency represents. Similarly, languages signify ideas and thoughts.

Convenient fictions also occur in science.

The theoretical posits of one era's scientific theories may be demoted to mere objects of the mind by subsequent discoveries: some standard examples include phlogiston and ptolemaic epicycles.

This raises questions, in the debate between scientific realism and instrumentalism about the status of current posits, such as black holes and quarks. Are they still merely intentional, even if the theory is correct?

The situation is further complicated by the existence in scientific practice of entities which are explicitly held not to be real, but which nonetheless serve a purpose — convenient fictions. Examples include magnetic centrifugal force, lines of force, centers of gravity, and electron holes in semiconductor theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_of_the_mind

Let's hear that one again,

entities which are explicitly held not to be real, but which nonetheless serve a purpose

If God is Imaginary then God exists.

"Imagination…is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

(Albert Einstein)


EvF - I can't make sense of you're post, you quoted a lot of stuff haphazardly, I don't know what you're asking of me.

---

I do not deny impulse far from it, the Holy Spirit is the greatest impulse, the Will to Create.

This is symbolized in many different ways by different cultures, usually though, they employ sexual imagery. What greater sign of the Creative Spirit is there than the birth of a new child.

In Ireland this was symbolized by the Dagda, depicted as a caveman whose huge penis dragged along the grown symbolizing his creative potency. Being a shaggy caveman, wearing only a sackcloth, he is a simple man, brutish and dumb, but with great power and love. Creation is blind, as is Love as someone already pointed out; Creation is Love.



This artist employs the imagery of the Stag when depicting the Dagda, http://admyrrek.deviantart.com/art/The-Dagda-63550840


A Dagda pendant to be purchased online,


In Egypt they had a god called Atum, representing the state of nothingness before creation, who created the universe by giving himself a blowjob and ejaculating into his own mouth. A related image to this is the Ouroborous, the snake eating it's own tail. Snakes also being another symbol of the penis (the dreaded one-eyed trouser snake)

This is the Word of the Infinite Lord which he spoke after he had come into being:

I am he who came into being in the form of Khepera, the Eternally Becoming, and I created all that has ever come into being, this that proceeds from me after I have come into being is exceedingly numerous.

The Sky had not yet come into being, the Earth did not yet exist, and the Children of the Earth, and all the creeping things, had not yet become. So I raised all of them out of the waters of Nu, from inert non-being.

There was not yet a place for me to rest my feet; so I moved my heart into action, and my Spirit laid the foundation of things by Maat, the Truth, the Word. I laid the foundations of creation in my heart and there came into being multitudes of created things, which themselves created even greater multitudes, which likewise gave birth to more and more creating things.

I was at that time alone by myself for Shu, the dry air, had not yet emanated from myself and I had not yet spat out Tefnut, the moist waters. There existed no other who could work with me so I gave birth to Shu and Tefnut after embracing my shadow as a wife, making love to my closed hand I ejaculated into my own mouth, thus becoming pregnant.

(Adapted from E. A. Wallis Budge's Legends of the Gods)

The sexual imagery employed is quite vulgar, but effective.

And of ourse the Hesiod's Theogony we see Eros who proceeds from Chaos, the great fire that creates all things.



In the beginning there was nothing.....and then there was this big bang type thing.

---

One last point. While the Great Fire (usually, although not always, represented as the sun) is creative, minor fires can be destructive.

Selfish destructive fires harm the individual.

A Classic depiction of Hell.



As an example they can turn you into this,



Or this,



Or more likely this (although that looks like fun, every now and then is ok I suppose)


But you DO NOT want to end up like this,


Self-control isn't a religious concept, it's spiritual (Spirit meaning Will, Spirituality concerns itself with how you live you're life.) And we're all spiritual. It's just that religious people believe in a primordial all powerful Spirit of infinite potency. Whereas the atheist....I dunno, what do you think the energy behind Big Bang is anyway?

---

Anyone wanna see the Sheela-na-gig? It's a belter.

[Rhizomorph13]

Anto,

Nice post, you're wicked smaht, by your verbosity you must be right. When I read these giant word gushes that seem so prevelent here I kind of approach them like a black jack card counter would at a vegas casino. The redundancies I just stack together to make a sum of one entry because restating a thesis does not strengthen it.

This latest rant of yours contradicts other statements you have made and sounds like buddhism to me with no need of god at all (Be neither attracted or repeled, the world is just a side effect of the observed interacting with the observer).

You are arguing that your god is imaginary so yay we agree. Earlier you said, "...by giving up that life, we gain new life and a new, free will, the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Creation" so when you say that I assume that you believe in Intelligent Design because you said it by hinting at the spirit of creation, but that is not central to my point. I am just trying to figure out how you allign your will with god.

You seem to find use for god and his will gives meaning in your life. I would put forth that YOU give the only meaning that you need and you lean on god only with the hope of giving yourself power through authority. If god is just some mental model and you don't believe in his objective reality then you might as well free yourself from religious ideas altogether.

The fact that you can't remember how you experienced god is very dissapointing to me. I am left thinking you ARE just an asylum wackjob or more probably a lier who just doesn't want to seem like an asylum wackjob. I'm always ready to read and even try new things.

Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of information, it is a good start but you are trying to finish our argument with it. You are saying that some objects of the mind are real therefore ALL objects of the mind exist which is a fallicious statement.

You've already conceded that you believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn (BBHH) and the FSM so the next logical step is to realize that ALL of them are objects of the mind, NONE of them are real, and then you can move toward a more evidence inspired life instead of chasing fairys.

Rhizo

[Dotard]

Where can I get one of these?

[Rhizomorph13]

Dotard,

You smelly troll! lol nice pic.

Rhizo

edit: oh my I didn't realize that Anto and I cross-posted. Still a cool pic though.

[Anto Kennedy]

This latest rant of yours contradicts other statements you have made and sounds like buddhism to me with no need of god at all

The goal of Buddhism is to seek union with the Divine; the unchanging, unmoving, immortal creator and destroyer of all things, and to bring your will(s) in line with this Will.

Well, that's Zen Buddhism. In the Tibetan tradition the primordial Buddha, Adi-Buddha, is the source of all things, including the Buddhas. The Tibetans teach that each of the Buddha's and Bhoddisatva's are emanations of this primordial Buddha. His other name is God.

The path to which one seeks a direct experience of the Adi-Buddha is called Dzogchen, and in some traditions is considered the only path to enlightenment.

The Zen's also seek this same experience under different names. They have a form of meditation which involves painting the enso sign continuosly whilst thinking about this God.



So while to be a Buddhist one doesn't have to believe in God, there are no articles of faith which one must accept as truth, the goal of Buddhism is direct experience of God. Or in other words, a Buddhist teacher won't try and convert you into his way of thinking, the teacher will only tell you to, 'go and see for yourself'.

What that means is we wouldn't be having futile discussions like the one we're having on wheither God exists or not, Buddhists ignore the topic completely and.....do something else.

You are arguing that your god is imaginary so yay we agree.

Only our understanding of God, indeed all the gods, are imaginary. But these perceptions are still real, otherwise, they wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be aware of them whatsoever.

The only way, barring direct personal experience, of having any understanding or knowledge of God is through the imagination, since God is not physical in nature.

And God isn't the only unphysical article of reality that is percieved through the sixth sense of the imagination.

Earlier you said, "...by giving up that life, we gain new life and a new, free will, the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Creation" so when you say that I assume that you believe in Intelligent Design because you said it by hinting at the spirit of creation,

You're still attaching an intelligence to spirit. Spirit is energy, force, power. Spirit moves, Spirit acts. Spirit doesn't think, Spirit isn't Mind. Intelligent Creation is an oxymoron, all creation is blind, since all creation involves creating something new, there is no precedent.

We do not decide the height, look, intellectual capability and behaviour of the child while we're in the process of concieving it. We do not even know it's gender. Creation is blind, creation is free. And the Spirit of Creation, the Holy Spirit, is free will.

So the irony is, we have to give up our will, to gain free will. We must throw off the shackles of the desire and fear. The impulses AND inhibitions which deny us the Will to Create Freely.

Now onto the inhibitions which we must free ourselves from. In an earlier post I mentioned that I went through an amoral phase, a phase wherein all inhibitions, and in particular, social inhibitions, were overcome. This is why withdrawing from society is so important, not only to free yourself from social obligations, but to protect yourself and others around you at this particularly dangerous phase of you're journey.

I am just trying to figure out how you allign your will with god.

After inhibitions have been removed, then the impulses. And then.....you'll just have to see for youself.

You seem to find use for god and his will gives meaning in your life.

A use? Don't know about that, but yeh, "his" will does give meaning to my life, it is the meaning of all life.

'There shalt not be nothing; create, create, create.'

I would put forth that YOU give the only meaning that you need and you lean on god only with the hope of giving yourself power through authority.

If god is just some mental model and you don't believe in his objective reality then you might as well free yourself from religious ideas altogether.

God isn't an object, God creates objects. Why would I worship an object? I'm an object too, I might aswell worship myself if God was an object. Which is probably what an atheist would think.

The fact that you can't remember how you experienced god is very dissapointing to me.

Can't really remember how, mostly I just winged it. See for youself, it ain't that hard really. Do a bit of reading, although this isn't that neccessary, go into isolation for several years, although it could take decades, who knows, and then....wait. That's what people have been doing for thousands of years, and it seems to work. Buddhists, Sufis and Eastern Christian monastic orders have worked out a system of techniques to accelerate the process and ensure the individual doesn't harm themselves either. So try an established monastic order if you can, I haphazardly walked alone like a fool, luckily I came out of it with some sanity remaining, but I wouldn't recommend that, too many risks involved.

Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of information, it is a good start but you are trying to finish our argument with it.

I haven't even begun my arguement. A wikipedia article that talks about the reality of mental objects is just a bit of a taster for what I've got coming.

I find Wikipedia an acceptable source of information myself, a lot of others would both agree and disagree. But I'm not writing a thesis, we're on an internet discussion forum, so Wikipedia certainly is an acceptable source of information in these circumstances.

Don't be such an elitist, knowledge can come from the most unlikliest of places.

You are saying that some objects of the mind are real therefore ALL objects of the mind exist which is a fallicious statement.

Felacio? Isn't that oral sex, what are you trying to say?

You've already conceded that you believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn (BBHH) and the FSM so the next logical step is to realize that ALL of them are objects of the mind, NONE of them are real

So what is you're definition of real? It's a question humans have been asking for thousands of years, and now, luckily for me, it seems someones discovered the answer.

and then you can move toward a more evidence inspired life instead of chasing fairys.

Evidence inspired life? Science regards facts, not spirituality. It gives no meaning and no purpose in life, it doesn't deal whatsoever with how we should live our lives. Science is just a tool for examining our environment, there's much more to life than knowing the mating habits of a racoon...how the hell is that supposed to inspire me into just and purposeful action?

My evidence put forward for the existence of God are the huge selection of recorded experiences of individuals who claimed to have been affected by God's Will. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire, and in this case, the Holy Fire.

It's quite weak evidence, but definately something to be investigated.

[Rhizomorph13]

Anto,

I was a theist for years and it sounds like you do what I did; try to find the reality of god through all religions. I am fairly well read, it is not from ignorance that I am an atheist.

You say I should spend my life in a monastery? I can't get laid in a monastery.

You've never heard of the word fallacious? I spelled it wrong but you knew what I meant.

Rhizo

[Anto Kennedy]

I was a theist for years and it sounds like you do what I did; try to find the reality of god through all religions.

I had the direct personal experience first, with only a background in Catholic maintained schools. You could maybe say I was an atheist then, there's a brilliant story about how I said to the RE (Religious Education) teacher in school how I didn't believe in God. In fact I was known by everyone in the school as "the guy who doesn't believe in God". Got my ass kicked too by a bunch of older kids who said I was a protestant......which doesn't make sense, but we were only 7-9 years old and it was Northern Ireland after all. (I'll give you the full story in detail if you like, it's actually pretty funny, the parish priest even got sent for and I had "special lessons", which thankfully didn't end up in buggery)

After the personal experience I then started researching. Firstly I tried a more academic approach i.e. psychology. Studied that for a while, looking for those key words, "self-actualization". Eventually left though, because, get this, the irony is epic, my psychology professor was a born-again Christian! From there I came across my next step on the journey; history this time. Wanted to study history from it's beginnings, here in the UK, we go through over 8 years of studying Nazi Germany and I was getting fed up covering the same ground and never being able to fit the events of the second world war into any sort of context. So I set out to study humanity's history from the beginning of civilization to the present, big history as it is known by.

Right I'm gonna stop here, I could be assed writing my life story and I'm sure you don't want to hear the details. Point is: direct experience first, fitting it into a cultural framework second. And since my culture is 21st Century, Digital, Global Villagism (or whatever you want to call it) my experience has become shaped into that cultural environment, therefore, Omnifaith.

You've never heard of the word fallacious? I spelled it wrong but you knew what I meant.

I actually don't know what a fallacy is, I've mentioned that before on these forums and no one has explained it to me. I never studied reasoning, arguementation or formal logic or whatever the subject is called. So words like premise or fallacy just go over my head. In fact, I was going to join the Catholic priesthood at one time, however I was expected to get a degree in philosophy so I pulled out. I just have this all-encompassing aversion of philosophy and formal reasoning, not good on an atheist forum, but I like to speak from the heart, wheither it adears to the rules of talking as set forth by some Greek asshole is of no concern to me (I'm really just a racist, hate the fecking Greeks & Romans; Western Civilization...omfg)

Anyway, this thread is dead (that rhymes!)

The only evidence that we could possibly have against God's existence, which Tiberius says can't be done, something about "you cannot prove a negative" (which is another one of those arguementation thingamajigs which go over my head), is if the universe has always existed. If it can be shown that the universe has always existed then a creator god obviously doesn't exist. So there's one way of proving that God doesn't exist.

However, that isn't the case as far as modern science can tell. The universe appears to have...began. If it began there must be a causative agent yada yada yada.

So at this moment in time it is more likely that God exists than doesn't. Although string theory can be used to say that the universe, or metaverse, has always existed, however there is no evidence for string theory either....


It all boils down to creation, cosmology. Is there a Holy Spirit, a Holy Creative Will. Or has the universe always existed, and nothing has ever been created.

We haven't even begun to unravel the mystery. Let's just hope that CERN doesn't go tits up like it did the first time.