God, Energy and Matter

[Simon Moon]

Why do they bother saying that the universe is god if they don't believe in the supernatural? Why not just say that the universe is the universe? Why bother getting into the whole god thing in the first place? There are also pantheists who believe as I describe.

I wish I knew why pantheists use the god label, because all they are really doing is calling the universe "god". Not sure why they use a word with so much baggage attached, when we already have a perfectly good name for the universe, and that would be"universe".

This from the pantheist website concerning their position:

1. Reverence for Nature and the wider Universe.
2. Active respect and care for the rights of all humans and other living beings.
3. Celebration or our lives in our bodies on this beautiful earth as a joy and a privilege.
4. Strong naturalism, without belief in supernatural realms, afterlives, beings or forces.
Respect for reason, evidence and the scientific method as our best ways of understanding nature and the Universe.
5. Promotion of religious tolerance, freedom of religion and complete separation of state and religion.

I could have said "before the beginning of the universe." Some believe time began with the beginning of the universe.

Still incoherent. The term "before" is used temporally, how can it be used to describe a non temporal state?

The universe is expanding all the time. What is the space it's expanding into?

Who says it's expanding into something? You are trying to apply observations made within the universe, to the universe itself.

This sounds like a fallacy of composition.

Studying others' mystical experiences, looking into claimed supernatural experience and miracles.

I asked for a reliable method, and you gave me one loaded with: anecdotal experiences and confirmation bias, that can't be tested, verified, falsified, etc.

Not to beat a dead horse, but depending on the religious confirmation bias one begins with, your 'evidence' will lead to mutually exclusive results.

Let me add an example. there is a culture (I can't remember which one, but I'll find it) that does not believe in ghosts (which you do). They believe that if someone claims to have seen a ghost, they have surely been put under a spell by a witch.

So, how are we able to tell if those people you claim to have experienced a ghost, have not actually been put under a spell by a witch?

But I believe that if there is a God and we seek him, he'll reveal himself to those who seek him when the time is right. For whatever reason, I'm convinced of his existence. So I believe he revealed that to me.

I understand that's what you believe, I care about the why. And you can't even point to a reliable method to get there.

I'm open too. If I can be absolutely convinced there is no God, I'll believe it.

Oh, bloody hell.

How many times does it have to be pointed out to you, that most atheists are NOT making the claim that gods do not exist. We disbelieve based on the fact that theists continually fail to meet their burden of proof.

This is logic 101.

Your 'method' of believing a claim, until it is proven wrong, should, if you were being intellectually honest, lead to all sorts of beliefs that have never been proven wrong.

Please let us know, when: Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, etc have been absolutely been proven wrong.

But of course, since you have been guilty of special pleading in the past, why stop now?