RE: Q: do you, Christian, claim that God exists, rather than you believe that he exists?
February 21, 2014 at 11:32 pm
(This post was last modified: February 21, 2014 at 11:34 pm by Whateverist.)
There is still the problem of "god" being poorly defined. If I look past the hollow omni powers and uncaused cause and all the other crap you hear many apologists say, what I see is that people who believe in them simply feel that they are in the presence of god(s). I think believers in God feel in His presence. They feel that they are transparent to God and that God knows their every struggle.
Those who believe don't know a thing about how any of this is possible, at least not until the apologists and preachers get at them and start foisting connections to this apprehension of God's presence to various narratives stemming from the bible. It would be more honest for people who have just the belief of being in touch with God to talk about His existence in the world they experience. The experience of God can be an essential aspect of how one experiences oneself.
If God exists in ones psyche but not in the sphere one identifies as oneself, then God's true place in the world is within the totality of oneself. Ones body and mind give rise to consciousness and that consciousness can take the form of being with but also apart from the God which ones consciousness also gives rise to. God isn't a conscious invention. No mere flim, flam. It has been an essential part of how people experience their world and themselves for as long as there have been people.
If that is the case, and I truly do believe it myself, then should those whose psyche has formed like this make the conscious effort to boot out God? I can't think of any reason they should. I'm quite sure it would be possible to have a very rich and satisfying interior life while continuing to honor as "other" and "wiser" the part one identifies as God. I see no problem.
PS: And I voted none of the above in my own case.
Those who believe don't know a thing about how any of this is possible, at least not until the apologists and preachers get at them and start foisting connections to this apprehension of God's presence to various narratives stemming from the bible. It would be more honest for people who have just the belief of being in touch with God to talk about His existence in the world they experience. The experience of God can be an essential aspect of how one experiences oneself.
If God exists in ones psyche but not in the sphere one identifies as oneself, then God's true place in the world is within the totality of oneself. Ones body and mind give rise to consciousness and that consciousness can take the form of being with but also apart from the God which ones consciousness also gives rise to. God isn't a conscious invention. No mere flim, flam. It has been an essential part of how people experience their world and themselves for as long as there have been people.
If that is the case, and I truly do believe it myself, then should those whose psyche has formed like this make the conscious effort to boot out God? I can't think of any reason they should. I'm quite sure it would be possible to have a very rich and satisfying interior life while continuing to honor as "other" and "wiser" the part one identifies as God. I see no problem.
PS: And I voted none of the above in my own case.
