Rather like a cosmic consciousness.
It happens that I believe in that, to a point only, because I don’t know if I could differentiate it from what Jung and Freud called our Father Complex.
I have no way of knowing if that is what I telepathically found or a cosmic consciousness.
Sight does not work in our minds and I could not tell if I was outside of my body or within it.
Why are you choosing the supernatural view instead of the natural view?
Regards
DL
I only believe in natural. There are natural phenomena that are rare. People call this supernatural. Otherwise, natural.
Goody good.
I agree.
Regards
DL
I dont reject it but am merely sceptical about something for which there is no evidence
I would still be an atheist even if materialism was shown not to be the totality of reality
Greatest I am
Why would you call it a “game”? Describe what you mean by game.
By “intelligent person”, do you mean the puppeteers who try to own our souls and our wills and take our money, like some preachers and psychics?
So, when you speak in terms of “supernatural” does that also include the entity which supposedly is responsible for the creation of the world or just fairies and angels and demons, et cetera?
I can certainly agree with this.
How far back are you going? The dinosaurs?
Gods and Goddesses
The ancient Greeks believed there were a great number of gods and goddesses. These gods had control over many different aspects of life on earth. In many ways they were very human. They could be kind or mean, angry or pleasant, cruel or loving. They fell in love with each other, argued with each other and even stole from each other.
…
ancientgreece.co.uk/gods/home_set.html
lol So, they were actually really good at doubting their beliefs then? That must have caused them a great deal of chagrin, no? But it is a great starting point for finding truth.
I agree. This is the way in which we humans explain away the world, turn away from finding “real” solutions to problems and refuse to see the real shadows and demons (non-supernatural) within ourselves. Anyway, I kind of think that superstitions are deep within our DNA, handed down from a forever ago.
For instance, science, fiction, poetry? What are you speaking about here?
I would say that it could be a worthy idea for us to ponder. We cannot actually prove one way or the other if there is Something Divine who or which permeates the universe. For some individuals, belief in a God can enrich one’s life and help them to live a more moral and ethical one. For others, their belief and faith can allow them to feel less alone in the world and as part of a greater Whole. We are not all Nature Lovers. So, why would we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and cause someone spiritual/emotional harm, as long as their belief can be a rational one based on what they can see of the world. It is possible though it is unprovable.
I think that we all need one another in a sense. For those with a great imagination and longing for a God, their belief in God may be enough but I am not so sure that it is or ought to be. But as I said, we all need another human, another’s voice, hands, embrace, et cetera. We cannot hold a God in our arms or actually here this entity’s voice as some believe they can. It is just a poor substitue for a human being or even for nature. Hugging a tree can give greater satisfaction. lol
I would be very careful about the human leader or spiritual guide which I chose.
How can a God, fictitious or real, be less moral than humans? We really do enjoy making this God into our own image and likeness or perhaps even better still, into the image and likeness of others. That is, for me, like calling a tree evil because it fell on you. That is a figment of one’s imagination, simply a projection of one’s own psyche.
Show me your God and I will show you who you are. 
Regards
DL
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We may not have an argument.
This link is as far back as I am looking.
bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2
As to your last. You are bang on.
Modern Gnostic Christians name our god “I am”, and yes, we do mean ourselves.
You are your controller. I am mine. You represent and present whatever mind picture you have of your God or ideal human, and so do I.
The name “I Am” you might see as meaning something like, — I think I have grown up thanks to having forced my apotheosis through Gnosis and meditation.
In Gnostic Christianity, we follow the Christian tradition that Christians have forgotten that they are to do. That is, become brethren to Jesus.
That is why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.
Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.
Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.
youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbes … r_embedded
Regards
DL
Lol no.
As Americans abandon God, despair rises. Suicide rates up 33% since 1999.
More Americans die in a year from drug overdoses than died in the entire Vietnam war.
This is what happens when atheism spreads like the cancer it is.
FS
I think that that would depend on the individual and circumstances/situations.
Some abandon God or let go of God because they have reached a certain maturity and autonomy. They have outgrown their need for the patriarchal figure.
If someone has other meaningful things going for them in his-her life and a strong raison de etre that does not have to happen.
Are you sure that those who died from a drug overdose actually abandoned God or rather felt that God had abandoned them along with those who were to love and support them?
You have no way of actually knowing if those rates are up because this one or that one abandoned God. I would suggest that you see it that way because your main focus in life is atheism.
No matter how much someone loves or values God in his-her life, sometimes horrible painful things happen that can break a person and cause him to lose his will to live. No amount of comfort and faith can change that. Perhaps a God is not needed at this time but one or two of his creatures.
What seems supernatural is only that which has yet to be understood… When the questions become answers based upon perception, is it still viewed as supernatural?
A delving into the depths of the unknown should always be an intelligent person’s goal.
Magic, is just unexplained science. It keeps us going.
Yes, the word just confuses things and leads to discussions where people talk past each other. If it is real, it is natural. Even if it is exceptional.
Artkmas,
What do you think?
But you used the word “perception”, Artimas. I asked that question because you did not say based on knowledge or fact.
Based on how we perceive things, many things can still be seen as supernatural and our answers for them may not be “real”.
All science is based on perception. Perceptaions that were repeatedly observed in controlled situations. Science is incomplete. Therefore there are likely some things that science has not yet confirmed that are real. The concept of supernatural is confused, because it implies that there are real things that are not natural. I think that’s a confusing concept. It is better to say phenomena. So, let’s take ghosts or psychic phenomena. People experience things and decide that not only was it real but that their interpretation is correct. If it seems like a paradigm shift would need to take place, were these things to be considered real within science, say, then at this point, even if they are real, they may not be confirmed. Just as all sorts of things were not believed to be true within science, until changes in the paradigms and/or more evidence came in. Phenomena in this category are natural, but not confirmed, but it may still be rational to believe in them.
There have been many things which people have believed, based on their perceptions, that were nto accepted by mainstream science, but which later turned out to be true.
Karpel Tunnel
True.
I think that my problem with Artimas’ response was that he seemed to be saying that the answers come as a result of only perception (belief) but I may have been wrong there. That is just the beginning of it ~ perception and observation.
More than likely. They will come.
The concept of supernatural is confused, because it implies that there are real things that are not natural. I think that’s a confusing concept. It is better to say phenomena.
Like the rainbow.
Before the scientific secrets of rainbows were discovered, these colorful bands of light were wrapped in mystery and folklore. Every culture had its own theory for the rainbow’s purpose, and many times it had religious significance. Rainbows have been called such things as the tongue of the sun, road of the dead, bride of the rain, hem f the sun-god’s coat, road of the thunder god, bridge between heaven and earth, window to heaven, and bow of God. Biblical accounts establish the rainbow as a covenant, or promise, between God and every living creature that the earth never again will be destroyed by flood. …
tpwd.texas.gov/publications/non … ndex.phtml
Some people, like myself, easily dismiss these things although perhaps I can say that there may be something to psychic phenomena. Am I and others as wrong, scientifically, to dismiss these things as others are to automatically believe them without question or doubt?
For instance?
Yes, isn’t science wonderful?
Or like rogue waves or that elephants could communicate over huge distances. People who were correct about these huge solitary waves and about elephant capabilities were told they were being irrational. Until much, much later when it turned out they correct.
I doubt most people automtically believe. It is likely based on experience. This, of course, does not mean it is right. You’re not wrong scientifically, nor are you right to dismiss them. One can always say ‘I have no reason to believe these things’. But my point was not about you, it was about the use of the word supernatural. If, say, it turns out those things are true, they are not supernatural phenomena, they are natural phenomena. To call something supernatural is to make it sounds like it is something other than nature. It’s either real or not.
I guess I have to start by asking if you really don’t know this is the case. But sure in Newton space and time are absolute, but Einstein showed they are relative. Quantum Mechanics has a wealth of things that scientists dismissed and dismissed until it was the case. The ability of animals to be able to use language like they do or to learn to solve certain problems was scoffed at then not. Scientists often deal with the resistence within the scientific community.
That seems like a disconnected conclusion, though I agree, just not as a conclusion to that. Often things are dismissed, when it would be more correct to simply say I do not see enough evidence for me to believe that. The scientific community has been as guilty of this as pretty much any group.
IOW they have binary thinking: science says it is true, it’s true. If science does not say this, it’s false. This is obviously contradicted by the history of science itself.
Let’s bring it down to earth with what has been am ongoing process historically. Reductionism and through ever expanding determinism through increasing awareness of phenomenological perception. The effect a of this is to transform or shift lreception to perception .
The point made by Peacegirl here can be effectively taken, that this shift of modality results in an approach to the in-finite, that is the appreciation of approach to the relative.
In fact there is an eager eigen , urgency, where by humanity is in a rush to get to the absolute.
There is an inherent guilt posited in the existential reproduction of what has been reified in and through ‘being’.
What is this all about ? Is the connected perception to life as tantamount to the original sin.
We heard ofnthe symbolic asymmetry between good and evil, that the temtor, the snake was really god, in it’s most elementary form, and the snake consciousness is inherent as a formal constituent of the very primal manifestation of the human embryo
The natural ( the pre evolutionary animal part of humanity) has reified the superhuman, by the adaption of the ‘word’ which , in spite of the showing that some animals have their own form of communication , do suggest an existential jump that dis in fact appeared as extraordinary, and supernaturally sourced.
I make the distinction here of ascribing such a jump as phenomenological not logical.
This, in fact, literally introduced the ‘Naturalistic Fallacy’ logically, literally.
By such introduction to logical fallacy, the separation between the natural and super natural is assigned and assured.
The effect of this breakdown in the bicameral mind, is. that the natural and the ‘simulated’ intelligence attains a connection, which can only be understood in religious and not mechanical or scientific methodology.
That is why conventional religion is losing adherents.
However such results in the minority belief in faith rather then knowledge.
Then, eventually , supernatural and intelligent become fallacious and conflicting.
Guilt becomes the mode of understanding the word of God, who instituted original sin, as somehow at par with the pleasures of existential creation.
This is what Nietzche had in mind, and it does try to break the habit or viewing redemption in binary systems thought.
Either/or - (Kierkegaard) tries to het pit from the fallacy (Nietzche) but Nietzche wins the short term gain, he sees no reason in other then immediate gratification. Time is receding the tide of opinion.
And since consciousness is simulation of existence, and the reductive de-differentiation has an anti-reflexive destination for theoretical comparative telati with to more absolute and equivocally short circuited certainty, this ‘fall’ need not be feared, it is a fall toward and not away from absolute certainty into the immortal present.
A life giving cancer, but ignore the stats all you like to maintain your delusional thinking.
You might want to stop lying to yourself and others.
youtube.com/watch?v=VdtwTeBPYQA
Regards
DL
Not the usual dictionary definitions but that does not matter when creating your own ideology and language.
I agree that delving into the depths of the unknown is good and intelligent, but to believe that speculative nonsense as real, is foolish to the max.
Regards
DL