Evidence of God

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_The Nehor
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Post by _The Nehor »

Blixa wrote:Nehor:
"JAK's dismissals of God do not seem to make much sense to me and if they followed his rules many of the great discoverers would never have made any headway. Galileo held to his theory despite the Copernican model having fewer abnormalities within it. Why? Gut feeling? Later it was found out he was right. Most new discoveries come about because a genius has a realization and in the face of all odds sets out to prove it."

I think what you are talking about here is intuition, not something supernatural. Intuition has long been recognized as a crucial part of scientific inquiry, although if intuition isn't tested rigorously against observations it is worthless. Relentlessly putting ideas to the test is what sets science apart from other modes of inquiry.


I have tested my intuition against my observations. See initial post ;)
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_Blixa
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Post by _Blixa »

You explain your experiences differently than I would Nehor, but I think what is most important about "belief" is not the explanation, but the consequences of it. In other words, what actions follow from ideas.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
_The Nehor
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Post by _The Nehor »

truth dancer wrote:Hi Nehor... :-)

I agree with you but (and I have only my own experience to rely on here) I in a sense can tell the strength of a Spiritual experience and aim for the stronger ones. I've had experiences while worshipping with others in a mosque and in a cathedral but I can tell the strength in degrees. Again, this may be just me.


With all due respect this is like saying the Dali Lama can tell how spiritual are the experiences of Mormons by visiting Sacrament Meeting. :-)

I mean seriously Nehor. :-)

Of course YOUR personal experiences are going to be stronger as you embrace your personal faith and beliefs. Just like some spiritual masters will see the LDS ideas as illusion or unaware or unenlightened. Humans tend to embrace the familiar and known.

Perhaps the limitations of your spiritual experiences have to do more with you than with God....

~dancer~


Perhaps the Dali Lama could. I for one would like to see the attempt.

I agree that the limitations of my spiritual experiences have more to do with me than God. I don't think it's my beliefs so much as who and what I am that are holding me back though. I have not as of yet been invited in to see the visions of eternity. Maybe tomorrow :)
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_truth dancer
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Post by _truth dancer »

Hi Nehor...


Perhaps the Dali Lama could. I for one would like to see the attempt.


LOL! After I posted this I thought to myself, yeah, the Dali Lama probably can tell how spiritual are LDS folks! ;-)

I agree that the limitations of my spiritual experiences have more to do with me than God. I don't think it's my beliefs so much as who and what I am that are holding me back though. I have not as of yet been invited in to see the visions of eternity. Maybe tomorrow :)


Can you see how the beliefs of others hold them back? Do you acknowledge that there are others with similarly strong, if not stronger beliefs than yours who feel equally or stronger than do you?

Do you see how, in others their beliefs directly affect who and what they are?

Do you realize that there are tons of folks who believe they have seen visions of eternity and few are similar to the LDS version?

You speak a lot about personal revelation as truth but I wonder how you can so easily dismiss all the other billions of spiritual "truths" taught and believed and experienced by billions of people.

I truly don't get this line of thinking. :-)

~dancer~
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
_The Nehor
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Post by _The Nehor »

truth dancer wrote:Hi Nehor...


Perhaps the Dali Lama could. I for one would like to see the attempt.


LOL! After I posted this I thought to myself, yeah, the Dali Lama probably can tell how spiritual are LDS folks! ;-)

I agree that the limitations of my spiritual experiences have more to do with me than God. I don't think it's my beliefs so much as who and what I am that are holding me back though. I have not as of yet been invited in to see the visions of eternity. Maybe tomorrow :)


Can you see how the beliefs of others hold them back? Do you acknowledge that there are others with similarly strong, if not stronger beliefs than yours who feel equally or stronger than do you?

Do you see how, in others their beliefs directly affect who and what they are?

Do you realize that there are tons of folks who believe they have seen visions of eternity and few are similar to the LDS version?

You speak a lot about personal revelation as truth but I wonder how you can so easily dismiss all the other billions of spiritual "truths" taught and believed and experienced by billions of people.

I truly don't get this line of thinking. :-)

~dancer~


Rationally I can't explain their beliefs. I have experienced only one person's experiences: mine. I do realize that there are many other versions out there. I used to chalk theirs up to mysticism and while I still believe that explains the majority of them there are some I can not explain. I could fixate on this but I don't. I have no real information. I can't really compare spiritual experiences in any meaningful way.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_Some Schmo
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Post by _Some Schmo »

Whenever I read these kinds of stories, the phrase "beer and breasts" invariably pops into my mind.

The human mind tends to work by associating things. It's so good at doing this that it tends to associate things that have absolutely no relationship to each other. The only relationship that exists is the one mentally constructed. Advertisers understand this fact about the human mind and use it to their advantage. That's why, in beer commercials, you'll often see large, barely covered breasts. Beer and breasts have nothing to do with each other, but if the target audience creates an association between the two, they're likely to buy more beer (because who doesn't like breasts?)

(Side note: I think if I wanted to start a successful religion, it would be a religion of worshipping breasts. Man, I could be rich! What would I call it? Hmmm... Oh, I know! "The Breastbyterian Church." Looks like we've got a winner, folks!)

When people have experiences that they describe in supernatural terms, it's easy to see how, due to a lack of understanding the real cause, they associate it to something supernatural (ie god).

I don't know what really happened to you or your friends Nehor, but I'm certain there are perfectly logical and reasonable explanations for those events, and they are all based in substantive, everyday reasons.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
_Mercury
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Post by _Mercury »

The Nehor wrote: I have not as of yet been invited in to see the visions of eternity. Maybe tomorrow :)


It seems to be a cheap thing to want for things with no evidence, waiting for them to come around the corner. There has been nothing shown to me, and believe me I have looked, that gives me credible information that even a grain of an afterlife exists.

Out of the 6000+ years humans have been living togerhter in cities, Mormonism is a VERY insignificant portion of that experience.

So...Molek, vishnu, Christ, elohim...they are all inventions given to us to create a boogieman/father figure to make humans bend their will towards supporting a priesthood. After governments came along by supporting the priesthood we had much of human history dictated by this alliance.

Following the reformation and independence from the papacy western culture stopped with the nonsense of taxation supporting a church. But that emotional tie guilting us into believing that if we don't tithe we will go to hell, damning our eternal souls, is what is holding you back.

Once you realise that there is no eternity promised to you then you will be able to live a life free from false constructs emotionally gang raping you into submission.
And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space...and meaning
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

(from apocryphal account) After Peter won a debate against the Gnostic Apostate Simon the people arose in a clamor ready to kill or beat Simon for his blasphemy and Peter calmed them down saying it was not their right to make such a decision. Simon was in God's hands and if he wanted Simon killed or beaten or humiliated or cast down he was perfectly capable of doing it himself and didn't need our help.

If Scratch or anyone else is your or my enemy (which I am not sure of) then we are under orders to do good to him. I remember no proviso in Christ's sermons that they only applied to those you like or those who do not actively oppose you. I now read the end of the Book of Mormon much differently than I used to. When the Nephites were engaged in their final wars they were convinced of the rightness of their cause and villified their enemies. They had no time to repent, there was a war on. They were the good guys, the lamanites were the bad guys. And in the beginning they might have been more good. However they let their hate and spite and vengefulness rule them and became equals in cruelty.

On my Mission I was what was known as a Bible-basher for some time. I was pretty good at it. I found though that it was turning me into a demagogue and crushing my ability to feel goodwill towards my fellow-man.


Go take a look at most of Scratch's posts to me just over the last several weeks and then take him to task as you have me. What I have told you about this individual is something that anyone who has dealt with him even peripherally knows very well for himself. I have tried again and again to engage him in civil, critical debate and he simply will not. He is a poorly read, tendentious, half educated demagogue and intellectual poseur who's rabid bigotry and hatred of all things Mormon is only matched by his cutting polemical skills, which appear to be, as to any intellectual depth, the only real intellectual skills he has acquired during his lifetime. So please get off your goody-two-shoes spiritual throne and grow up. The man you are defending against me despises your religion, despises and mocks your spiritual experiences, and despises you for defending that religion. In time, you will learn, young Jedi.

I have defended you here on this thread in a philosophically substantive manner. Apparently, you choose to view me (most likely because of my views on the Iraq war) as your opponent. So be it. We need discuss nothing
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

It seems to be a cheap thing to want for things with no evidence, waiting for them to come around the corner. There has been nothing shown to me, and believe me I have looked, that gives me credible information that even a grain of an afterlife exists
.

Just look at yourself Mercury (Coffee), look at your attitude, at how you talk, how your express yourself, at your adolescent mocking at the sacred things of others. You've looked? Your flailing immaturity and vulgar manners are one thing. Insulting other's intelligence with a brazen whopper like that is quite another.


Out of the 6000+ years humans have been living togerhter in cities, Mormonism is a VERY insignificant portion of that experience.


So is, by that measure, your existence.


So...Molek, vishnu, Christ, elohim...they are all inventions given to us to create a boogieman/father figure to make humans bend their will towards supporting a priesthood. After governments came along by supporting the priesthood we had much of human history dictated by this alliance.


A very fine example of a very pure form of Korihorism. Ignorant, historically illiterate, and anti-intellectual to the very core.


Following the reformation and independence from the papacy western culture stopped with the nonsense of taxation supporting a church. But that emotional tie guilting us into believing that if we don't tithe we will go to hell, damning our eternal souls, is what is holding you back.


More Korihorism shaken not stirred. Actually, our taxes do support a religion known as the religion of Secular Humanism, its just that there aren't any formal services in that one (except perhaps, at the abortion clinic).


Once you realise that there is no eternity promised to you then you will be able to live a life free from false constructs emotionally gang raping you into submission.


Once one gets a serious and deep education and begins truly thinking in a critical and imaginative way, psychobable like this is as easy to spot as a dead Triceratops on Ventura Boulevard.
_Mister Scratch
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Post by _Mister Scratch »

Coggins7 wrote:
It seems to be a cheap thing to want for things with no evidence, waiting for them to come around the corner. There has been nothing shown to me, and believe me I have looked, that gives me credible information that even a grain of an afterlife exists
.

Just look at yourself Mercury (Coffee), look at your attitude, at how you talk, how your express yourself, at your adolescent mocking at the sacred things of others. You've looked? Your flailing immaturity and vulgar manners are one thing. Insulting other's intelligence with a brazen whopper like that is quite another.


A couple of things.
1) Mercury is a.k.a. VegasRefugee.
2) This is quite a hypocritical lecture coming from someone who repeatedly derides other posters for "not being intellectually and philosophically serious." Before you start to critique the manners of others, you had better check your own, Brother Loran.


Once one gets a serious and deep education....


And it can be yours, for free, with a simple click of the mouse button! Come study under Coggins7, recent graduate in political philosophy from Google University!
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