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Are you an atheist? if so, What is your POV about God?
- Thread starter Segev Moran
- Start date
No offense taken. I can be quite offensive at times myself when my patience runs out.
It's not so unusual. If someone starts from a position of understanding, they will be more sucessful at reading and interpreting a technical manual.
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McBell
Unbound
- I do not have an active belief regarding any god (for or against).
- Capitalization, though important to you, does not make any difference where evidence is concerned
- none of the "isms" concerning theology change my lack of belief
- I have not seen, heard, etc. any evidence which convinces me a god exists
- I accept the possibility, regardless of how small, that one or more gods might exist
- I have no problems re-evaluating my position whenever new information is discovered, revealed, presented...
- My re-evaluation is mine, not anyone elses.
- I have a pet peeve with people, usually non-theists, moving the "evidence" goal post..
- asking for "evidence" and then dismissing the evidence presented by modifying after the fact the type of evidence is moving the goal posts
- If you want empirical object evidence, then say so.
- The person making the claim holds the burden of proof
- The person claiming god exists holds the burden of showing god exists
- The person claiming god does not exist holds the burden of showing god does not exist
- lack of evidence does not "prove" lack of existence
This whole post makes no sense.
You didn't quote the whole post. It was a response to your statement "Ignorant much?"
McBell
Unbound
"Ignorant much?"
Whether or not you believe this, I get what you're saying because I have experience (that I remember well) of what it is to be agnostic, or in today's terms weak atheist. But you seem to think I don't get how definitions work, and so, we'll continue.
You do realize this is a not-statement about not-statements, yes?
Oh, so you're talking about strawberries. Got it. Or is it raspberries?
Another not-statement about not-statements. I believe saying what it is not, tells you something. I imagine you'll tell me a not-statement in relation to my assertion that you are defining pomegranates in virtually the same way one may speak of strawberries, or raspberries. Can I then say when you invoke that, that it conveys precisely nothing?
I don't think it is fully emotional, but with what you've conveyed, the question I have is how would you understand/be aware of "truly corresponds?"
And because I've had several discussions on "how we know things," I've encountered a fair share of people (including philosopher types) that will resort to 'gut feeling' as a response. Thus a feeling. I do realize you can appeal not to feeling and instead to intellectual to further explain "truly corresponds," but do realize that I can come back and keep pressing on the point of "how do we/you understand this, what is basis of the awareness?" If somehow you doubt this and think intellectual only can reveal knowledge, I'm game. Give it your best shot.
Perhaps because words can't do this? Words, I find can describe it, and may trigger a conceptual understanding of what's being revealed, but even that isn't precisely accurate since the words themselves hold literally zero power.
You're adding in a bunch of implications that were not stated. I could do the same with "atheism" in the definition of "without a belief in God."
"Without," "belief" and "God" are implying that God is understood and believed/accepted, yet also denied in the assertion. See how my implication worked? You've done the same with what I said, and then added implications that aren't present in the claim.
Hence revealing where the power for words actually comes from.
To show you how Love manages, would take willingness for you to apply it. To do your own experiment. Yet, like any experiment, there could be various ways to interpret the results. If you disagree with this, feel free to provide any known experiment and I'll demonstrate how one can try it once and conclude something altogether other than what is perhaps consensus of interpretation in understanding the likely result of the experiment.
Thing is, with Love, you are doing it. Right now. You may sure as heck be unaware (more likely under aware) in how it is occurring right now in own experience, yet it "truly corresponds" to your accepted reality. To grow awareness, an experiment whereby you are consciously/intentionally aware of application may help. Depending on consistency in application, I would say it would surely help, in terms of remembering (or achieving) knowledge.
Welcome to the world of communication.
It does not. And no. There is no "other" agency.
Technically, going with exact words you are using and how I'm interpreting them, this is accurate. "No matter" with existence might be figurative for the way you are using it, I'm choosing to take it literally. With Love present, there is nothing currently lacking that needs fulfillment. And "not existing" is esoteric, but again, I think you were choosing figure of speech rather than esoteric understanding.
I do as well at times, but scope of entire world, is generally too much, for me. Again, perhaps you meant your role within the world, but not sure.
I get how you are trying to understand this, and again from my agnostic memories, I'd use same type of rhetoric. But understanding with Love there is nothing (perceived as currently lacking) to fulfill means that you are not really able to miss things. That to me, gets esoteric, fast from the intellectual perspective.
So, let's say today God/Spirit spoke to you. Let's also say that the communication was exactly in the manner that you may have said at one point, "this is how I'd know" (it is God). But let's also say that in the moment that occurred, you forgot about ever saying that, and you also were very busy with worldly stuff, thus not mindful of the communication. From intellectual perspective, you (arguably) missed it. Thus still lacking evidence of God from your perspective. I'm saying it's not plausible that you actually missed it, even while superficially I wouldn't deny that you are showing up (to me, let's say) as unaware off the experience of communication, that did occur.
There's a bunch here I could say, but not wanting to write wall of text, especially knowing that it is very likely key points would be ignored. I would just say your consciousness didn't miss it, and I think you get this intellectually. I'm also kinda implying it could come up later, where you do suddenly remember that moment and remember 'something odd occurred' and even realize 'wow, that was exactly the type of experience I had once asked for.' But as I am more or less speaking in hypothetical, I understand how easy it would be for agnostic/atheistic mindset to write this all off as "not God."
The other thing I would add is that is (literally) happening all the time (God communicating with you).
The things you bring up would have very little impact on my daily experience. If I had to "go to work today" and was foregoing Knowledge, it wouldn't be (just), duh I don't know how to get to work. Could be some of that, but that's not what I was getting across. It would be more in vein of, "I'm not able to do that job, I don't even know how I got it. Oh that's right, I put on a game face and told them things about me that are superficially accurate, but I'm not feeling that today. I'm going to get exposed today if I go to work as the fraud that I am. I'm going to lose that job, I know it. May as well not even show up. Wait, that could end bad. Maybe if I go and kill the boss, I can't get fired by him. Yeah, that kinda makes sense."
Why would you think I might hate you for this narrative? Because you are attributing knowledge and hope as your guides, rather than God? Is that the reason you think I'd hate the narrative? If so, it truly humors me. With what very little you conveyed, I find it implausible to not see God at work in your life. Intellectually, dealing with superficial understandings of God, I see how it plausible to deny such influence. I get that. Again, I truly do recall what it is like to be agnostic. Now that I'm gnostic (and wasn't a transition from one to the other, but a few steps of growing awareness), discernment tells me God is guiding your life. If you choose to call it something else, I am very (very) okay with that. I'm also feeling confident that if I knew you offline and hung out with you daily, I'd surely see signs of how you deify certain primary influences. Chances are we'd discuss that periodically, and I grant the idea that you'd maintain position of "not-God" as precise way for you to describe it. Understanding that a not-statement works for you.
Not sure how this follows from what I said. I was focussing on "wanting" in a way that isn't superficial, as I think you are with regards to what religions may offer for believers, or instruct believers to engage in.
Okay.
Perhaps, or probably. To the degree that it concerns me what anybody else chooses to represent the divine with symbolically is a discussion I generally don't shy away from, and that can, rather easily, humor me at times.
Wow, that's harsh. Inaccurate, and harsh.
God is the giver of Life. Wherever you perceive Life around you, that is evidence of God being around you.
I did quote the whole post.
McBell
Unbound
He quoted your whole post.
I even posted a pic of the post of your he quoted.
Can you substantiate this claim?
... if we assume that God is the giver of life. Why should we assume this?
Where you can see that he left out "Ignorant much?" which was a part of my post. The irony is that you actually called your pic whole post proving he didn't quote my whole post.
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I'm all ears.
And I don't, so the only way to resolve this impasse is for you to go ahead and demonstrate your claim. If it's really axiomatic, this should be a trivial exercise.
Can you substantiate this claim? LOL.
I can substantiate the claim, but it would likely lead to you doubting the source of information. Like, I can ask Spirit within me, to provide answer if you like. I can reference any number of texts that speak to God as giver of life. Or I can meet with you when passing away from the material existence and have you be like, "yeah, I know, was playing dumb in that moment." All of this would substantiate the claim, but all of it, in this moment may be not sufficient enough for you to see the claim as valid. Guess what, just about any claim you come up with, I could play the game of "it has not been substantiated enough to my liking" which doesn't mean it hasn't been substantiated all, but does mean, in a certain sense, you may not have what it takes to substantiate it to my standard of valid.
How might you demonstrate the claim that we are existing in a physical universe without utilizing anything that is (allegedly) physical to demonstrate this? Or did I pick something that is not axiomatic as counter example?
But that wasn't your post technically, and quote feature works in a way that it doesn't include signature lines or other things visible in a post. Would you like further explanation on how the quote feature works?
I did quote your whole post.
My post wasn't technically my post?