Debate: God Exists

[pocaracas]

I'm talking about that being a silly way to do things.

Again what are you talking about?? Any one not born into what they currently believe to one degree or another researched and chose their current path. Some more honestly than others but never the less I see this sort of thing happen all the time. My wife still works in the church's food pantry and hands out with boxes of food pamphelets to help people study and make said decision. I also several other religions including Islam (Islam being the best/most modern) have similar programs.

Your critical disconnection on how religion works in people's minds should have you take pause and reevaluate what it is you think you know and how religion works in people's minds.

It is my awareness of how it works on people's minds that prevents me from allowing it to work on myself.

But yes, I am aware that some people go through those motions that you outlined... and I keep saying that it is not a trustworthy method, given the trappings that our own human minds can easily trick themselves into.

If you're ascertaining some tidbit about reality, you don't go into holy books which require belief and what looks a lot like self-deception for you to accept the existence of whatever it is they advocate.
You go into reality and find out.

If God is all powerful, and He says meet me here in this book first... Why would I go out into the world looking for God? Or are you saying this is how you proofed your anti God theory? You went to the place The bible says God isn't demanded God to show up, when He didn't you felt you did not need the bible?

IF.... mighty "if" you have there.

You're working with the premise that such a God exists.
I ask you "how would you know that it exists?"
And you may tell me "it's in this book" or "I experienced him" or whatever...
Then I will have to ask if whoever wrote the book experienced him in the same way you did, if yes, then what does it say about both your human minds?
Should we assume the experience is an accurate representation of reality, or would it be safer to say that your minds work pretty much in the same way when presented with similar stimuli?
While mine (and many others' who are in a minority) works in a slightly different way?

It is clear that whoever wrote the book you use was also within a highly religious society. So the same sort of stimuli to considering a benevolent god may have been in place... cue in the Essene society.

Where did such a notion come from? well, that's been lost to time, so we can do no better than speculate.
However, I see a few options:
- If there is such a god who wants us to know about it and acknowledge it and praise it and do all the things in the bible... then how did that god make itself known to mankind, in the first place?... in a pre-bible, pre-written word world, how did it do it? If he did it once (or more than once), then what's keeping it from doing the same thing for all of us? I wouldn't mind knowing if there is indeed a benevolent creator god. I'm curious about it, actually. I want to know.
But I refuse to let my brain get self-deluded into belief.

- If there is no such god, then it was clearly made up, through exploitation of our minds' flaws, even if unwittingly... the notion was conceived and was pleasant enough to flourish and evolve.

- If there is a god that created this Universe, but doesn't really care about what goes on here, in this tiny speck of dust in a lost corner of the vast Universe... then... why worry?

That's funny as that is not how I remembered it happening. Again did the budda thing first, mom changed religion turned to korean jesus next, nothing from him, went metaphysical hippy BS with my dad for a while, then it all came crashing down hard then went a-holeist for a few years. Then demanded a chance to spit in God's eye if there ever was one. Started beating christians so as to have them send a message to their God for me. God showed up, or rather I showed up at my judgement. Got to look Jesus in the eye did not spit.

Wow.... you were beating people? Damn, that's evil. I'm glad you found the bible, then. Stick with it! Really!

So you tried this and that and then dreamed a dream... ahhh I remember!!... the dream of an eternity without god, wasn't it?
How do you reckon that idea came to your mind?

I was placed before Jesus on my judgement looked into his eye, got a sample of the love and what Heaven was about, then I experienced a version of Hell I never knew existed. Up until that point I had only known Dante' Inferno version of Hell. Here is where you placeebo theory gets it wrong for me. In what I experienced (A few minutes) totally undermind everything I knew of Jesus, the Judgement, Heaven Hell the purpose of eternal life, death, and redemption. So much so for the first few days I thought everything was made up because in all of my 'church experience' nothing lined up with what I saw... Then I began to read a bible I never picked up before and there  in the bible did I begin to check off all the things I saw and experienced.

Again, all the same and much much more can be yours to experience for yourself. To experience God, to find out everything you know of God to be wrong, and to learn as you read.

I posted a thread like 5 years ago on this website that went into further detail, which throws you baby out with your placebo bath water without even tryng to. Meaning I was not making an counter placebo arguement I was simply pointing out the order in which I began to learn about God. Which again is the complete opposite of how you think it happens.

Wanna see the bathwater come back?
What did Buddhism teach you?
Where were you brought up? Korea?
What's the story with that korean jesus from your mum?
I seriously doubt that you can honestly say that you had never heard about the concept of hell being an afterlife without god, given all the religious influences you were having.
You may have not picked up on it, but just heard and shrugged it off, until years later when you dreamed that dream.

On the other hand, going back to one of the possibilities I mentioned above, your mind could have worked in a similar way to the mind of whoever came up with the concept of hell you then found in the bible. Coincidences like this happen. Be honest, is this not a possibility?
"Correlation does not imply causation" is an often heard phrase... but it does hint towards causation, most of the times.
Concerning the way the human minds works, it gets tricky, due to the highly complex nature of the neural network in our brains.
I prefer to side with human brains that work in a similar way among themselves. Brains that can be similarly fooled, or tricked, or deluded into a particular set of conclusions.
You prefer to think there's an external cause to such similarity in conclusions.

If there is a god, why would I think the way I do?
If there isn't a god, why would you think the way you do?

then why did hippy God work? he let me do anything so long as I did not hurt other people?

Secret: every god will let you do anything.

Not the God of the bible..sorry.

Sure he does... you were even beating up people. You can do anything that your body can physically perform and no god will interfere. They all let you do whatever you want.

The "as long as you don't hurt other people" is your empathy at work. Most people have that, too, you know?

that's the hippy talking. I now have the freedom to treat others as I would like to be treated.

Why do you say "now"?
Were you ever prevented from treating others that way?

The problem with people who have it in their heart not to believe don't actually address specifics only situation. which makes them look lke a douche bag when they get caught mixing specifics with situation, so they generally double down and pretend what they are saying is true anyway even though their whole philosophy has been outed as being bunk

I sense a passive strike... I dodge! The crowd goes wild!

as the douche dodges into a blindside upper cut!!! By thundara I beleve procrates truly thought he had the upperhand with his dodge, but he did not see drich setting him up with his own testimony that at it's core refutes everything the thunderian was trying to preach about placeebos. Something Drich had waiting in the wings for over 5 years!!

Glad to let that 5 year wing flex a bit!
Oh, what's this? The eye of Thundera glimpses some more placebos coming Drich's way!! Oh no!!
What will Drich do with so much sugar pills?!
(tune back tomorrow. Same Drich-channel, same Drich-hour!)

My world view encompasses the whole visible Universe and considers the possibility of stuff beyond it.

So what you can see, and similar stuff just beyond it!
you would have totes been an earth is flat-er.

(I took out those rofls... they're too big for the text)

Would I have been an "Earth is flat-er"?... maybe... but if people had shown me or told me about how they came to the conclusion of Earth's roundness, I would understand how that works and do the experiment myself, or not.. just run it in my mind and see how it can pan out.
See how it has zero dependence on any of my faulty brain's inner workings and go with it.

It also acknowledges the complexity of the human mind and all the ways it can work to produce a satisfying "world view" while being an totally incorrect one.

Translation: you mock things others believe that you have not accepted for yourself.

Do I mock thee?
I keep asking "why do you think this?", "how do you think things happened?", "don't people tend to behave this way?"
I'm trying to get you to think about how people can produce the whole experience of god... but, since I read that beating up people bit of your life, I'm considering just letting you be a christian apologist, so you don't go back to that.

Knowing that, I avoid getting myself in a position where I can let my mind convince itself of an erroneous model for reality.
Yes, that's analogous to the placebo I know (or strongly suspect) to not work as advertised.

You know your system of belief can is strongly influenced by the placebo effect, by through sheer intellectual prowlace you are able to plot an accurate course...

In my conversion I have my experience with God coming before and knowledge of God. Then I have 20+ years of reading and studying that confirms what I experienced.

What do you have again?? oh, that's right sheer intelect and willpower. Can't see that ever failing you

(again, removed the rofl)
Come Drich, you had a dream of something you may very well have overheard but not remember until that dream. And you tell me my approach can fail?
Well... I know that I never remember any of my dreams... so... maybe that's for the best.

I wonder in which of those categories you're putting me...

The proud/Chaff God is trying to seperate from the rest by mandating you bow your head and bend you knee before He do anything for you.

Or if you earnestly tried at some point then a 2 out of 3-er

Why is that god so like a king that would require its subjects to bow their heads and bend their knees?
Do you require your cat to do that? (you do have a cat, right? or was it a dog? I forget...)

Imagine you were the creator of the Universe... and in that Universe, among 10 billion galaxies, there is one galaxy that, like many others, has some 10 billion stars.... and there is one star around which travels a planet, on the surface of which there many living beings.... but a particular species of them has intelligence... and you want them to bow down to you, because you gave them that intelligence... huh?!
Why would you care?! What does it matter to you that those people assume you exist, bow down, and only then do you present yourself to them... but only to a few, in dreams or some coincidence-ridden experience...

It boggles the mind.

Psychology, Drich!
What do you know about the power of suggestion?
Nothing... I'd wager.

I know before you suggest, you get your facts straight so someone like me doesn't leave you looking like a fool when your prize of a theory falls flat.

A theory that posits that the human mind is responsible for all religions that have ever existed on the face of this planet?
Let me know when it falls flat...

Isn't that the textbook definition of a believer?

or an atheist. a lazy mind does not need a deity.. just hive mind to hide in.

A lazy mind?
Hive mind?
Have you ever been in a religious temple during a religious ceremony? That's hive mind-like.
"You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."
Well, luckily, we are now equipped with science to properly resist...