I was shocked and stunned to find out that there wasn’t THIS in philosophy. So I ask you, how does god exist?
I’m getting the feeling that he doesn’t, that people created him because they were too afraid to die, they created them to satisfy there own needs. Maybe the human instinct of surviving created the idea that we live forever. The religions around the world are different to fit different needs. It is also the same in history, Egyptians, Romans and now us. Now our god fits our needs perfectly. Will there not be a different God in 2 or 3 thousand years. Also if there is a god why is the entire bible based around humans, what about animals and the dinosaurs. I’m afraid God could just be here for hope. A great comedian once said retarded people cant go to heaven because they cant understand the concept of it. They don’t need god in there life so he isn’t.
No retarded people? Shucks! God loves the meek, though, right?
I hope the retards can go to heaven, they are excellent comic relief. Midgets too.
Well, get the feeling that he doesnt exist. You’ll be hard pressed to prove it. Although, you can prove he’s not perfect. Just because he’s not perfect doesnt mean that there isn’t some form of divine motivation working, though. It’s rather complicated.
Hey, we can prove god as easily as we can disprove the proofs of god. It’s all about “faith” in the end. Be smart, go Agnostic and let death sort it all out.
Hi INoNothing,
Unfortunately there is only intuitive evidence of God, but for those who have experienced it, it is remarkable. It is in a word or a vision, in a dream or in a trance that God communicates - and always there is a reaction that people were not expecting. The problem with all of this is naturally in the fact that measureable indications are only found with the believers.
It isn’t by physical proof that God manifests himself and he remains a mystery. True mystics accept this and are even able to communicate ecumenically across the religions. “Church-goers” are very often frustrated by this and need something firm in their hands - and churchleaders have very often made the mistake of giving them something “firm”, to the detriment the church.
Many things that the church has had to contend with, they have themselves caused. In fact, the Church has sometimes weakened the witness of believers by playing down the fact that communion with God invariably leads to communion with our neighbour and compassion with the needy - which is the consequent “proof”.
When Mystics felt themselves obliged to talk of the existence of God, they did it so:
emanuelnyc.org/bulletin/archive/104.html
Again, here is not something for people who want scientific proof. It may appeal to “Philosophers” - but it is perfectly acceptable to those who make themselves no illusion.
Shalom
Bob
INN,
What if, perhaps, the question of an existing God was a catalyst for other questions which are asked inadvertantly. Consider the conditions in which the question is asked: from an anxious mortal human perspective. What such a person in such conditions is really wanting to know is what happens when he/she dies, what is “good,” what one ought to do in life, why one ought to do it, etc., etc. The concept of “God” is the grand symbolization of all these themes and acts as a foundation from which to establish whatever truths about them. Purpose, meaning, and justification in the universe and possibility for a spiritual existence after physical death are the direct concerns of the human being, and, in fact, the underlying motive in asking the question and entertaining any/all concepts of “God.” It is strictly a psychological tic that customizes the question in such a way as to relieve humans from the anxiety of these existential dilemmas. Compensating, so to speak, for losses and absence of value.
Voltaire rightly said that if one were to ask a triangle about the attributes of a “God,” he would claim that they were infinitely triangular. Likewise, asking a fish about the gallon of water he swims in, he will equate God with an infinite ocean.
What is challenging is to concieve of a God from a standpoint that is not anthropocentric. Obviously as a human being I can’t do that…my perspective is ultimately a human one. But if I am quick to notice the peculiarity in a humans interpretation of God, this psychological tic that I speak of, I can avoid the errors from the start and count out any conception of God that includes them.
In other words, if I ever came to believe in a “God,” it will most likely be a God that is not the least bit concerned with human affairs. Such an indifferent conclusion will save me from the traditional and classic problems that we see being confronted here at ILP. Questions about God’s “moral” inclinations, the question of “evil” and God’s omnipotence, the question of freewill and autonomy, is he benevolent, so on and so forth.
If one accepts from the start that these questions are inherently human and human in theme, and that anything human is contingent, one has no need to compare and contrast lacking values with necessary values. It is only in moments of deperation that we realize our contingency and seek to overcome it by expressing it as necessary: if one takes morality for granted, then their next question is what is morally good and what is morally bad. For this, the concept of God is constructed to support whatever conclusions come about, and then the problems emerge regarding the ethical inclinations of God. For example, theoretically we hold it imperatively true that killing is wrong, but could justify a quarantine or abortion within specific and contextual circumstances. There comes an exception to what is regarded as a rule, and we then scrutinize God for the mishaps: how could he allow the possibility for terrible diseases to kill millions, or the possibility that a child be concieved by a crackhead prostitute mother. We then, like clockwork, propose that this is part of the plan, that we have freewill, that God has allowed this to happen because we are being tested, challenged, whatever. This is a remarkable sublimity and it shows the lengths human reason will go when facing its own contingency. No matter how rediculous or absurd an experience might seem, human reason finds a way to fit it into, and, find for it, a causal necessity.
Since I have ruled out the possibility for the good/bad dichotomy, that is, good and bad are partisan to a foundation, I see that human moral themes do not exist without presupposing this foundation, so it happens that morality doesn’t exist without God. I’m simply entering from the back door here. I’m saying that we sense the contingency of our values and sublimate the lack and absence of necessary moral truths into a God concept, and, ironically, we are absolutely delighted that we can’t prove the existence of God. We are stacking contingency plans because we know we’re out on a limb anyway and have nothing to loose. We would rather not know that our struggling was in vain. The psychology is fascinating.
So let’s say, INN, that when you ask me if I believe in God, it will be highly unlikely that if I say “yes,” you will know exactly what I am refering to. I can say, with great confidence, that if you consider any of the previous paradigmatic interpretations to be accurate depictions of God and/or its attributes, then I don’t subscribe to your question and cannot answer it.
No harm intended, Bob, but I want to use your statements as examples to further explain to INN what I mean.
The key word in that statement is “intuitive.” He doesn’t say knowledgeable as he might say that the table in front of him is knowledgeable. But he wouldn’t feel it necessary to say that the table only exists intuitively, right? Because it is an abrupt fact that has everything to loose if in fact it is false: this would merely mean that the knowledge was real, but the table was an illusion. If he were to say that he intuited the existence of the table, it wouldn’t have anything to loose if it were false because objects of intuition needn’t be real to be intuited. I can intuit and even visualize in my head a blue unicorn, I can give him intelligence, characteristics, tendencies, mannerisms, anything, as long as the object is not subject to empirical experience. Bob can safeguard the proof this way. Very clever indeed.
Then he describes an experience of a God’s existence as being remarkable. Granted that that is the case, it still doesn’t state anything specifically that would make such an experience different from any other experience. If we accept the first part of the statement, we would automatically assume that an experience of something that is “intuited” would need to be explained differently than things that are knowledgeable such as the table’s existence. Hell, I’m having a remarkable experience of the table in front of me right now, but I find no reason to consider any other aspects of my experience as unlike the experience of this table.
Again we have the same demonstration. Appealing to unusual and/or uncommon experiences that a “few” have, or that everyone can have but not be aware of. Personally, I would be equally skeptical about hearing a voice from the sky as a voice in my head. Let me tell you a true story.
When I was 19 years old, I was at a friends house tripping on acid(blotter). They, Tonya and Emily, were outside on the deck and I was in the living room watching T.V. A very strange event happened that still to this day I have trouble explaining.
As I was watching the T.V., the picture was randomly blinking in and out from a clear picture to “T.V. snow,” or bad transmission. A few minutes into this, for no reason other than to entertain myself, I would pretend that I could mentally control the reception of the T.V. signal. Suddenly, the transmission was precisly timed with my thoughts. It began as a game and became real. Everytime I thought to myself “clear picture,” while concentrating on the T.V., the picture would clear up and stay clear until I thought to myself “loose reception.” After the first couple times, I obviously assumed that it was chance, but as I kept doing it, and it kept happening, I came to the conclusion that this was to incredible to be chance.
Now, I’m not saying anything “spooky” here. I’m saying that I experienced a very awkward event that wasn’t an ordinary phenomena to be experienced. That is not to say that such an experience exceeds explicable experience. I found no need to speculate on the mysteries of telekinesis or clairvoyance, or to spook myself out and believe that I had some magical power that was evidence for some God. You will see that even in a mysterious experience as I had with the T.V., there is still no reason to assume anything transcendental is going on.
Sagacity and a nameless something more, – let us call it intuition. --Hawthorne.
Hi de’trop, back again I see. I have nothing against you using my arguments. In effect we are on the same side to a certain point. As long as people are trying to claim a physical existence of God or a literal translation of scripture, you have me on your side battling away.
When you start claiming that direct apprehension or cognition isn’t possible, then you go out of your depth. Did you mean “knowable” when you wrote
???
I really can’t say that a table only exists intuitively, because that would mean the table arises from or is related to intuition. Rather I am saying that God makes an impression on those who experience him intuitively and that communion with God invariably leads to communion with our neighbour and compassion with the needy - which is the consequent “proof”.
Your experience - as with many such examples - doesn’t lead to a behaviour that is particularly different to before. Brecht’s question is pertinent here:
Someone asked Mr. K whether God exists. Mr. K said: “I would advise you to ask youself whether your behaviour would change according to the answer to this question. If it wouldn’t change, then we can forget the question. If it would change, then I can at least help insomuch, as to tell you that you have decided: You need a God.”
Shalom
Bob
pardon me but why should god exist? i find it rather amazing how mankind needs to attribute things to a god…
My problem with ALL, and I mean ALL of your arguments is that they are greatly “faith” based. You say that God can be known intuitivly, yet, I feel the COMPLETE opposite. You assume that people, in general, want to believe in god?
No, that’s not the case. If there is a God, I want to kill him. I intuitively do not want anyone out there with more power over the circumstances that affect my life than me. I don’t want your type of god (the one the Torah speaks of, the one the Bible speaks of, and the one the Koran speaks of). I want a weak god, if anything. Nothing more than an arrow, a ray of direction. I don’t want him to be judge or jury, I don’t want him to have a flaming sword, I don’t want him to be able to turn me into a pillar of salt, I don’t want him watching me have sex with my wife when I marry to ensure I don’t practice anal. I don’t want your god. If your god exists, I want to kill him.
However, even though I actually lean to state that he doesn’t exist, because I “will” my “faith” in that direction…I don’t …EVER… NEVER…I never ever ever preach Atheism.
Why? I seem so strongly to intuit God’s non existence, I feel as though he doesn’t, because his very existence would be a perversion to me. You state that I should believe in god because mystical experiences warrant it. Well, I have had no experiences that I was ready to blame on an invisible man named God. Ok? And even if I did, I would make it my DUTY to hunt this invisible asshole down and destroy him.
Yet…I’m still not Atheist???
Sometimes, you just don’t have all the answers, Bob. I’m not as bold as you. I don’t want to state that I saw the light and that everyone else should/can too. I think you’re wrong. Period.
But, I wont deny the possibility that you’re right.
I’m Agnostic. It’s the only rational course of action, as I’m sure your so called “God” would agree.
Hi Rafajafar,
I fully appreciate your position and have argued elsewhere in the Forum that I see a number of reasons why people wouldn’t want to have faith. In fact, on Friday my wife and I enjoyed a very satirical look at church, and how it presents itself in the world (and we’re going back tonight for more). I am deeply self-critical of the church.
What is deeply frustrating at times, is the fact that people are led to believe that the Bible is about people that are different to you and I. Your agnostic emotionality and anger is all a part of what the Bible is trying to portray. Our greatest problem with the book is the traditions that have evolved around it. They are sometimes much stronger than the book itself.
Especially when things are taken out of perspective and stories romanticised, figures heroised, people pietised etc. the whole religious thing makes you sick. It is either horribly sweet or desperately bitter. But the stories of the Bible are really very human and tell us a story of slavery, liberation, vindication, frustration, desperation, hope and restoration.
The difference between this book and for example the Lord of the Rings is that the Bibel is very allegorical, filled with metaphers and comparisons. The Characters are representations of abstract ideas or principles, or the stories portray events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
Tolkien didn’t want this, he wanted simple Mythology. He created his own Mythology because Britain had lost it’s own collection of myths which address their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes - even if it is pure fantasy.
And yet, even Tolkien must add a “something” in the background, something pushing the Hobbit towards Mordor, something that has Bilbo find the Ring, something that makes people stand and fight in the face of defeat by an overpowering force.
I think it is this Mystery that is capable of awakening the best in Mankind and helps him overcome the worst. The Jews found this something when Abram left his clan, when Isaac tried to retrace the steps of his father, and when Ja’acob struggled at Peniel. We call this Mystery God, but it has no name known to us. And if you want weakness, Christ on the cross can’t be any weaker.
Shalom
Bob
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your thoughtful comments. After reading them i have come to the conclusion that this thread has done more to define ourselves than it has to define God.
I find it strange that in matters of God, we are asked to go on faith, but rarely use this useful attitude in our daily life. We don’t have faith about how much gas is in our car. We use a guage. When it comes to God, proofs simply will not work.
Bob said:
This, combined with my Atheism, comes close to my stance on God. I am an Atheist, who nevertheless, understands the necessity for myth and the more positive aspects of Religion. I am a disinterested party who still understands the importance of the game.
Shalom,
Marshall
I thought this question might be somewhat popular.
I like bobs way of puting it.
I think he’s right. To think that us humans are the tip of the spear in the universe would obviously be incorrect. Something has to be above us and what ever it is we can not describe it so we come up with nothing! I hope that is what he was trying to say.
Also that ties into Rafajafar agnostic way of thinking but just a little. Agnostic being defined as One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. I think it is very easy to know the yes or no question of there being a god or not. Is there a god (yes or no) that’s simple. I would rather think what ever god is or what ever brought us into being would be much more complex, so complex that we cannot comprehend it which relates to bobs nothingness. Much like stuff in the past that was incomprehensible is now comprehendible (some forms of advanced math). If we will ever comprehend what is out there I don’t know but obviously (and hopefully) there is something. What would be really interesting is for some aliens to drop by and give us there take on god. (Completely random but it would be nice)
He shouldn’t exist, which brings us to the question of is he there because we need him to be? But like earlyer shouldn’t there be something greater then humans in this universe.
And last I must address the all oh so popular marshal. He is right in saying that we are leaning towards defining us, and we shouldn’t be. Also that faith gage thing is a very true insight, I had never thought of that before.
Yes, I would like something like that too. But I also appreciated the line in Contact (with Jodie Foster) when she has travelled (without travelling physically) to the originators of the signal, sees an image of her father and is told that the route she took hadn’t been built by the supreme intelligence she had visited, but was there long before them. She returns and only has her “faith” that the whole issue really happened.
Or look at K-Pax: was the Alien in the body of someone brain-dead? Did he travel on a beam of light to earth? Or was the man suffering from a psychosis that caused him to fall into a trance when the designated time came for his imagined figure to leave? I think these are very intelligent and conceivable storylines that tell us a lot about ourselves. And don’t they make mysticism somehow feasible?
I have great doubt (despite liking Star Trek) that we will ever have human beings physically journeying to other planets. I think that our physical existence is a border that we cannot cross until our physical life ends. But whether we will one day discover that we have other ways of exploring our universe - I don’t know. According to Prot, there is a lot of potential here.
Shalom
Bob 
Thank you for your posts.
Inonothing stated:
(italics mine)
“Something has to be above us…”. I do recognize the rather small silhouette of man as illuminated by the vast regions of the universe. Humbleness and gratitude are emotions that are useful. The possibility of life on other planets and even the possibility of life more intelligent than our own are too great to discount.
and,
Me? Popular? 
I would gladly trade any popularity i may possess for the answer to some of these questions. We tend to define God from our own perspective. Who was the Greek who said Cow’s would have Gods that look like cows, etc? Perhaps the idea of God is a projection of some deep, dark, secret part of ourselves. The first Gods were utilized to help explain natural phenomena like lighning and the like. Freud alluded to the fact that God represents a Father figure to older people.
Bob. I figured the eloquent mystic would have much more to say than to talk about movies, although i quite enjoyed Contact and your post. I suppose faith is necessary. The Buddha holds out a lotus flower to anyone who will take it and yet remains silent. Some will find God in the small still silence of that beautiful lotus flower, some will appreciate the beauty and not see God, and some will merely scratch their heads. Selah.
Shalom,
Marshall
Thanks for the flowers.
What is wrong with movies except that many of them are garbage? There are always the occaisional highlight, just as there are good books that are worth the read. I’ve recently read books by Philip Roth (The Human Stain) and Ian McEwan (Atonement ) and consider them gems of genius. I have watched all three Lord of The Rings films (and read the book three times since 1970).
If you go to the thread on Miracles, you will find that I propose that Mysticism is really the reality that we should all experience, not the exception as it is today. I truly believe that we are continually getting a breath of clean air, a gentle fragrance, a short and sudden insight that all point to the fact that we are missing something.
Jesus is on record as saying: “You are surprised by this? You will do far greater miracles in God’s realm!” He didn’t see himself as special because it had become normal for him. But for everybody around him, he was the personification of the deity. We all have experienced something that took our breath away, something that made us very abruptly aware that we haven’t seen nothing yet. That is what revelation is like.
God isn’t invisible - we’re blind!
Shalom
Bob
I have read the Tolkien series 5 times and seen all three movies, the return of the king twice. There never seems to be any decent discussion about movies, though. Your post was excellent.
shalom,
Marshall
Everyone,
I’ve been thinking lately about my arguments against the existence of God, meaning, and purpose for the universe. And, well, I have some good news…
I just saved 15% on my car insurance by switching to Geico.
HA! Good to have humor. Well it sounds like it is settled, God doesn’t exist. Yet it’s funny when im stuck in a jam I will pray for his help. I was in a religion class today and they were talking about the sources and where the word of Jesus and god came from and it hit me. Why didn’t Jesus write anything down?
This is a biting criticism against religion, namely its intellualism, that is killing and corrupting the true essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that saves ALL, retarded or otherwise.
And a lesson here is this: unless you can explain anything to a child you have not understood it enough yourself.
And this is also a test for any religion: if you need to be an intellectual to know it, it is false.
Ha ha ha. There you go. Jesus saves all?? But retarded people can not understand the concept of being saved, thus they do not need to be saved. They do not need Christ.
As for the gospels, they were written by men for men. Shove them out of your lives because there molded just for you, your so so selfish. If Jesus wanted us to have a gospel or two why wouldn’t he have taking the time to write one??
Someone help me. Maybe I need jesus??
Thats beside the point, really. God said I have mercy on whom I have mercy. I hate those that I hate. If God “saves” the retarded even if they do not “understand” what is that to you.