Existance of God: Our imagination?

[Bob Dole]

I'm confused, are you actually saying your scientific process is really to call something a fact, then change the rules to fit that "fact"?

Why was there radiation in the perfect world that existed before Adam sinned (although, Eve did sin first)? For the half life of radioactive materials to have changed, there must have been radiation that was decaying. Eden had no death, so radiation couldn't have decayed, if it couldn't have decayed it couldn't have had a half life. Maybe after sin destroyed the world it could have decayed with a very short half life, eventually becoming longer and longer as years past. That would mean in 1,000 years if the half life of carbon-14 hasn't changed then the half life had always been the same and carbon dating actually does work. That is a long time to wait, although for now I'll assume it works because there are so many problems with a changing half life. There would be some method of detecting the change that someone would have been able to prove it by now.

[Guest Timbo]

Hi Adarian,

I have to agree that the "pure religion", is one that is "undefiled before God...to keep (oneself) unspotted from the world" is the "only kind of religion that God approves of" as James says at James 1:27. What, though, does it mean to be "undefiled before God...to keep (oneself) unspotted from the world" ? Jesus, just hours before he died, told his disciples: "These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you. "(John 15:1-19) What was Jesus saying ? He was laying out identifying marks of the true religion. What religious organization has ' love for one another ', that these are unwilling to go to war against others in another country ? What religious organization is "no part of the world", not meddling in the political arena, even mentally ? Who are the ones that are are striving to remain "unspotted from the world", from religious teachings that bring reproach upon God ?

At Matthew 7:13,14, Jesus said to "go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it." Hence, how many are on the road that pleases God ? Jesus said just a few. Why ? The vast majority of mankind are on the road that is "broad and spacious", in which just about anything goes. One can believe any which way one wishes to, for many have the belief that all religions lead to God. Is this true ? Not according to what Jesus said, for only a few will "exert themselves vigorously to get in through the narrow door" at Luke 13:24, to fully please God. What are some examples that show how religion has been a tool to mislead people ? The teaching that God is part of a trinity, that he burns "bad people" in a hellfire" are a couple. Too, the teaching by the churches that the soul is immortal is another. We must remember that we should be wanting to know what is the "pure religion", not just a religion that makes us feel good or is one from our parents.

Does the "pure religion" allow the teaching that Christmas is proper for true Christians ? According to the The New Catholic Encyclopedia, it says of Christmas:

[Floatingaxe]

Existance of God: Our imagination?

I believe so. Humans are dreamers. We create imaginary worlds every night while we sleep. It is not inconceivable that we would occassionally confuse these worlds, or certain aspects therein, with reality itself.

I have had some very vivid dreams, dreams so "real" I have mistaken them for reality. But I eventually let them go, because I realize how improbable it is that something so extraordinary occurred. But I imagine, if someone else told me they had the same dream, I might have held fast to those fantasies, and taken dreams for reality.

I think this is a good anecdote for religion. Dreamers affirming dreamers. It is not a coincidence religion is so pervasive, that it exists in every soceity, even soceities that did not have contact with the God you believe is true. We all dream. And religion is born of the dream world.

God is so creative in giving us a part of His own nature: HIS IMAGINATION! God is no dream, runner's high. He is solid, He is our Rock. Imagination is only a part of what we possess as a power of the mind, which He has and He gave! It is only a shadow of what He has, of course.

[Ovedya]

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist"

[Ovedya]

I think the inverse of that statement is equally true when applied to God.

It's not hard to hide that which lacks evidence. What is hard is convincing people that something without evidence exists, and I believe the church has done just that.

Then essentially you are saying that the church has propigated the most widely accepted conspiracy ever committed upon mankind. Wow! The church must surely be the most diabolical institution on the face of the earth!

[billie]

I think the inverse of that statement is equally true when applied to God.

It's not hard to hide that which lacks evidence. What is hard is convincing people that something without evidence exists, and I believe the church has done just that.

Then essentially you are saying that the church has propigated the most widely accepted conspiracy ever committed upon mankind. Wow! The church must surely be the most diabolical institution on the face of the earth!

Yeah, who says Christians are dumb??

[secondeve]

god lives and dwells in my imagination

That sums it up for me

Then essentially you are saying that the church has propigated the most widely accepted conspiracy ever committed upon mankind. Wow! The church must surely be the most diabolical institution on the face of the earth!

I disagree. What you are saying is that someone came up with an idea which, although unprovable, they believed to be true. Other people were then told about it, and some of them believed, too. This is the whole point of faith; it never can be proven and never will be, so it's not a conspiracy, just a belief, hinging on the idea of "might," in the sense that it might be true. The fact that it could be in something false doesn't mean that the people who spread it deliberately set out to tell lies, and given what a political institution the church was and is, I highly doubt that their sole goal was spreading conspiracy so much as garnering support for an accepted set of moral values and abolute ideals in exchange for worldly authority, both spiritual and material.

And also, I fail to see how, even if you wanted to run the deliberate conspiracy line, this would automatically equate to diabolism on behalf of the entire church. Unless you were just being superlatively sarcastic.

[Ovedya]

god lives and dwells in my imagination

That sums it up for me

Then essentially you are saying that the church has propigated the most widely accepted conspiracy ever committed upon mankind. Wow! The church must surely be the most diabolical institution on the face of the earth!

I disagree. What you are saying is that someone came up with an idea which, although unprovable, they believed to be true. Other people were then told about it, and some of them believed, too. This is the whole point of faith; it never can be proven and never will be, so it's not a conspiracy, just a belief, hinging on the idea of "might," in the sense that it might be true. The fact that it could be in something false doesn't mean that the people who spread it deliberately set out to tell lies, and given what a political institution the church was and is, I highly doubt that their sole goal was spreading conspiracy so much as garnering support for an accepted set of moral values and abolute ideals in exchange for worldly authority, both spiritual and material.

And also, I fail to see how, even if you wanted to run the deliberate conspiracy line, this would automatically equate to diabolism on behalf of the entire church. Unless you were just being superlatively sarcastic.

Such worldly authority and control over the ignorant masses requires that a certain number of persons on the top - those of higher worldly or spiritual status - intentionally coerce entire groups of people into believing something that they either know to be a lie, or that is so unoprovable it could never be discovered. At some level, therefore, a lie is involved.

The only problem with such a situation is that no person willingly dies for something that they know to be a lie. And every lie at some point is eventually uncovered by those who doubt the story. So essentially what is claimed is, a conspiracy was formed in order to gain power, weath, authority, or all of the above, and this same conspiracy - whether carried out through intention or ignorance - still exists today in the form of what Christians consider to be the truth. Further, I would add, Christians remain so entrenched in their ignorance, that they have yet - after two thoudsand years to discover the conspiracy.

Not only is a claim like this absolutely unprovable, it is an insult to all those intelligent persons who decided that the orthodox faith is worth defending by cause of its absolute truth.

[Ovedya]

...Organized religion did not invent the supernatural, it has just shaped it in its attempts to monopolize it.

And hence, logially, a conspiracy against people to use religion as a method of control.

The church is a very worldly institution.

Thus judges a woman of the world.

All religious things are.

Not so.

Hi Ovedya, yeah, please fix my post.

I did not write that stuff.

Ah....Sorry runners. It seems I edited your post instead of hitting the "quote" button. That was entirely unintentional.

[secondeve]

Such worldly authority and control over the ignorant masses requires that a certain number of persons on the top - those of higher worldly or spiritual status - intentionally coerce entire groups of people into believing something that they either know to be a lie, or that is so unoprovable it could never be discovered. At some level, therefore, a lie is involved.

Do you make a distinction between a lie and a falsehood? I do, and I think that, in this context, it's important. Let's look at it this way. I believe wholeheartedly that whales always give birth to twins. When I tell people this, I'm not deliberately telling a lie; I'm passing on information in good faith which I believe - incorrectly - to be true. People who believe me are unaware that they've received a falsehood, and pass it on in turn. This means that an untruth can be propagated without anyone setting out to lie. And if, for whatever reason, there was no means of proving me wrong - if nobody had ever seen a whale give birth, for instance, nor had any chance of doing so - how would my error ever be corrected?

I have no idea why you're hung up on something 'so unprovable it could never be discovered' - doesn't this exactly describe the phenomenon of religion? If Christianity - or any religion, for that matter - was provable, it wouldn't require faith to sustain belief: it would be a self-evident truth.

The only problem with such a situation is that no person willingly dies for something that they know to be a lie.

Exactly. And the key word here is "know." Suicide bombers are clearly quite willing to die for a lie - because, if you or I are correct in our beliefs, then obviously the premise of their sacrifice is false. But they don't know that. They simply have faith - they believe that they are right, which, to them, is the same as knowing. And this is the whole point. Your'e universally equating internal knowledge with actual fact, even though this can't possibly be the case, to say that Christians wouldn't die for God if he wasn't real. Of course they wouldn't - but if they didn't believe that, they wouldn't be Christians, would they?

And every lie at some point is eventually uncovered by those who doubt the story.

Says who? This is a 'perfect world' comment. Not all lies are uncovered, and you're talking about disproving what is, in effect, a working hypothesis, where the ability to discover the truth is beyond the ability of human beings even though posing the question isn't. Ovedya: say I believed that, at the farthest end of the Milky Way, there's an asteriod that's been colonised by tiny space-faring aliens. Prove me wrong. It's a lie to the best of my knowledge, but you can't prove it, and given the number of asteroids in the universe, even with space-faring technology, you never could. Case in point.

So essentially what is claimed is, a conspiracy was formed in order to gain power, weath, authority, or all of the above, and this same conspiracy - whether carried out through intention or ignorance - still exists today in the form of what Christians consider to be the truth. Further, I would add, Christians remain so entrenched in their ignorance, that they have yet - after two thoudsand years to discover the conspiracy.

Not what I claimed at all. What I said was that, effectively, someone got it wrong as to whether or not God existed and a lot of people believed them. This later lead to the creation of an institution designed exclusively to support that deity's Earthly authority which - by virtue of the number of believers and the politics of the society in which it was established - began to accrue a whole lot of wealth, power and prestige, which only added weight to the supposed verity of the initial doctrine. Nobody has ever difinitively proven otherwise because doing so is impossible - because the entire premise of religion is based on, and this is important, knowledge of things which human beings admit they are otherwise incapable of discovering. Not because Christians are ignorant; because it's impossible.

In this scenario, think of the analogy of a criminal case. We athiests have a very strong suspicion that there is no God - we just don't have enough evidence to prove it to you. You Christians have a very strong suspicion that God exists - you just don't have enough evidence to prove it to us. So the case is deadlocked: not because of ignorance, but because of the limitations of human knowledge.

it is an insult to all those intelligent persons who decided that the orthodox faith is worth defending by cause of its absolute truth.

You know, I meet a lot of Christians who - for good reason - get angry when some athiests imply that they must be stupid to believe what they do. Most Christians are intelligent people and have well-researched reasons for their beliefs. And yet - and yet! - so many Christians assume that - like those athiests I mentioned - anyone who believes differently to them must be equally unintelligent and groundless in their beliefs. Do you think that all the intelligent athiests in the world who choose to defend their beliefs are anomalies?

Edited November 17, 2006 by secondeve