If God exists, how can we reliably know anything about him?

[serp777]

The nature of the world and universe should indicate something about the source of all those things. We can easily get glimpses this way just the same way as art is a glimpse into the world of an artist.

The nature of the world and universe should indicate something about the source of all those things.

Why should it indicate anything?

We can easily get glimpses this way just the same way as art is a glimpse into the world of an artist

I am so tired of the artist analogy to be honest. Its such a terrible analogy; you're presuming that the universe is like an art piece. The only way we know that art pieces are designed is because we have examples of artists, different art pieces, and a lot of other evidence showing us that art pieces are made by artists. We don't have a bunch of universes to compare to--some designed and some non designed. You need examples in order to be able to make the distinction between a designed painting and a naturally occurring snowflake because without examples and evidence you might conclude the snowfkake is also designed. So you've somehow made the determination that the universe is designed because paintings are designed--a complete non sequitor.

 

[idav]

Why should it indicate anything?



I am so tired of the artist analogy to be honest. Its such a terrible analogy; you're presuming that the universe is like an art piece. The only way we know that art pieces are designed is because we have examples of artists, different art pieces, and a lot of other evidence showing us that art pieces are made by artists. We don't have a bunch of universes to compare to--some designed and some non designed. You need examples in order to be able to make the distinction between a designed painting and a naturally occurring snowflake because without examples and evidence you might conclude the snowfkake is also designed. So you've somehow made the determination that the universe is designed because paintings are designed--a complete non sequitor.

That takes the metaphor a bit further than I really intend. I am not really a believer in design per se. I use the analogy more because art is more ambiguous making it harder to really determine attributes of any given source. Another way to look at it is our material structure at atomic level being a clue as to what the universe is made of, for example.

 

[George-ananda]

Sorry, but how could you have a rational analysis without including logical arguments? Furthermore, this kind of goes back to the initial point of doubting your experiences and questioning not only the validity of those experiences but also whether you have interpreted them correctly and considering if other explanations are equally viable. The topic was centered around how you would personally know whether you could know that these experiences were legitimate, or as I specifically framed it, how you could reliably know the mind of God based on personal experiences. For instance, how did you determine that an alien psychological experiment to see what you'll believe is less likely than Advaita being the one correct belief. Both of these would produce exactly the same experiences you've had and convince you of the supposed truth.

One note, my Advaita beliefs are not based on my own personal experiences but on those who I have come to believe have delved deepest into the nature of consciousness and reality. Can I disprove some fantastic idea like it is all an alien psychological experiment? No, but I just see no reason to consider it seriously either. I do not consider all logical possibilities to be equally likely and the teachings of the eastern/Hindu masters I find the most reasonable based on the evidence and argumentation I have considered from all sides. I just don't seriously consider things like me being the only conscious entity in existence or being part of an alien experiment.

 

[Fool]

It seems that its probably impossible to know anything about the mind of God. Personal revelations, right off the bat, are no good because you don't have a basis to assume that:

1. Your experience was real and was from God/wasn't a hallucination.

2. You interpreted your experience correctly.

3. It wasn't the result of an alternative explanation such as aliens running an experiment on you.

4. God wasn't lying to you or trying to deceive you.

5. Its not a trick from the devil.

Obviously there are probably other problems that have to do with the fallibility of humans. So we really can't use revelation to find anything about God. The same list could also apply to revelations in a holy books except that new problems arise because we have to make assumptions about the mental health and truthfulness of those writers or the fact that it isn't just an exaggerated legend.

SO what other methods could we use? It couldnt be science since science has no way of investigating God's mind as far as we can tell. It couldn't be from the nature of the universe since we have no way of knowing how or what God would convey through the nature of the universe. It couldn't be through our moral conscience because human moral conscience is probably just a by product of human evolution and can often be extremely erratic or questionable.

Ultimately, we're left with no way we can reliably know anything about God, which makes me wonder how anyone can think that they reasonably know anything in God's mind. Therefore, I see no reason why everyone isn't just an agnostic, or at the very least an agnostic deist who thinks God exists but doesn't know his mind or his role in the world.

addressing only question 1.

if god is love then experience is direct and from insight. with love all things are possible.

 

[serp777]

A follow-up question for you - what percentage of our day-to-day experiences would you say we should trust, on average? Fifty per-cent? Seventy? Ninety-nine?

What distinguishes the small percent of "don't trust this" from the rest? What are your criteria? Do you expect others' criteria to be the same? Should everyone have the same criteria as you? Why or why not?

A follow-up question for you - what percentage of our day-to-day experiences would you say we should trust, on average? Fifty per-cent? Seventy? Ninety-nine?

I don't know but you're stuck with exactly the same question because naturally you would not trust your eyes if you saw what you knew to be an optical illusion. That's one small example but it proves that we cannot completely trust ourselves, meaning you'd have to consider what percentage you trust your experiences as well.

What distinguishes the small percent of "don't trust this" from the rest? What are your criteria? Do you expect others' criteria to be the same? Should everyone have the same criteria as you? Why or why not?

Mainly by the commonness and proven reliability of the experience. Reading, for example, could be trusted more since you've had quite a bit of past experience that has been confirmed to be accurate, and the reliability of your reading skills has been demonstrated numerous times. But of course you can't always trust that you've read, or interpreted what you've read correctly. There's no way to put a precise percentage on that and the percentage would be different for each person. I'd say maybe around 99.9%, a complete guess-- if you're a good reader with good eyes.

The other category consists of rare experiences. A hallucination for example, should be heavily doubted for a number of reasons; a hallucination occurs because of the misfiring of neurons in the visual cortex. Furthermore, there's no reason to presume that a hallucination or vision, or both is grounded in reality whatsoever. And we also know that we don't trust those who have frequent hallucinations, includng schizophrenics. Generally speaking though you can differentiate between rare experiences, like aliens abducting you, and common experiences like seeing a red light in front of you. Saying those things are equal would be a category error.

 

[serp777]

One note, my Advaita beliefs are not based on my own personal experiences but on those who I have come to believe have delved deepest into the nature of consciousness and reality. Can I disprove some fantastic idea like it is all an alien psychological experiment? No, but I just see no reason to consider it seriously either. I do not consider all logical possibilities to be equally likely and the teachings of the eastern/Hindu masters I find the most reasonable based on the evidence and argumentation I have considered from all sides. I just don't seriously consider things like me being the only conscious entity in existence or being part of an alien experiment.

Can I disprove some fantastic idea like it is all an alien psychological experiment? No, but I just see no reason to consider it seriously either.

How is it you've shown that an alien experiment or the matrix is less likely than Advaita? We know there is life in the universe, and its not unreasonable to conclude that its possible for alien civilizations to have emerged. With billions of years to work with these civilizations could become very advanced to the point where they could run large scale experiments. You've simply claimed that advaita is more reasonable and less fantastic when you haven't shown any basis to assume that's the case. From an objective standpoint beyond anecdotal evidence and assertions, your claim that advaita is consistent with reality is equivalent to the claim that aliens are running an experiment on you and tricking you since we don't know either of the probabilities.

I mean I think if you can't objectively demonstrate or at least justify a claim, then there's really no good reason to believe it since there are plenty of Christians and Muslims who've had experiences of Jesus and Muhammad, which is certainly inconsistent with Advaita. There would be no good reason for your claim and experiences to be more valid then there's. I just don't understand the basis of you saying its rational. if you said its faith that you just accept, I mean at least then you wouldn't have a burden of proof to show how its reasonable.

 

[serp777]

addressing only question 1.

if god is love then experience is direct and from insight. with love all things are possible.

I see no reason to assume God is love. I also don't see how all things are possible with love. Is it possible to love so much that you escape the gravity of a black hole? This isn't interstellar here.

 

[serp777]

That takes the metaphor a bit further than I really intend. I am not really a believer in design per se. I use the analogy more because art is more ambiguous making it harder to really determine attributes of any given source. Another way to look at it is our material structure at atomic level being a clue as to what the universe is made of, for example.

I don't see how you're connecting atomic structures to a clue that the universe is designed. I'm not saying its not a clue, it might be, but I fail to see any reason to accept it as a clue based on current information.

 

[Quintessence]

I don't know but you're stuck with exactly the same question because naturally you would not trust your eyes if you saw what you knew to be an optical illusion. That's one small example but it proves that we cannot completely trust ourselves, meaning you'd have to consider what percentage you trust your experiences as well.

I'm not sure I've seen anyone ever suggest that we can completely (as in 100%) trust ourselves. However, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that something on the order of 99% of the time, a healthy individual with a robust self-esteem and sense of self-worth will trust in themselves and their own judgement. Those who are unable to do this tend to get classified with various mental illnesses or personality disorders and have difficulty functioning in life. I would much rather that someone embrace a story that tells of the Christian God than bumble through life constantly second-guessing themselves and having trouble making life decisions.

Mainly by the commonness and proven reliability of the experience. Reading, for example, could be trusted more since you've had quite a bit of past experience that has been confirmed to be accurate, and the reliability of your reading skills has been demonstrated numerous times.

It seems to me the same can occur for experiences of the gods. I'll grant that since the mainstream religious traditions in the West gutted mysticism from their makeup that this is uncommon, but it is out there.

The other category consists of rare experiences.

Would you say you believe that experiences of the gods are "rare" experiences? Extending from above, this isn't necessarily the case. Again, it's true that direct exploration of the gods has been suppressed and discouraged in Abrahamic traditions, this is not the case in other religious traditions or in the mystical branches of Abrahamic traditions. Religious experiences - be they of the gods or something else - are not necessarily rare occurrences. They may not be as categorically different as you are assuming. While I get where you are coming from with this "category error" this differentiation does not necessarily apply as you are envisioning.

 

[George-ananda]

How is it you've shown that an alien experiment or the matrix is less likely than Advaita? We know there is life in the universe, and its not unreasonable to conclude that its possible for alien civilizations to have emerged. With billions of years to work with these civilizations could become very advanced to the point where they could run large scale experiments. You've simply claimed that advaita is more reasonable and less fantastic when you haven't shown any basis to assume that's the case. From an objective standpoint beyond anecdotal evidence and assertions, your claim that advaita is consistent with reality is equivalent to the claim that aliens are running an experiment on you and tricking you since we don't know either of the probabilities.

I could have a pink unicorn in my backyard that does a perfect hiding job every time I look. That would be consistent with the reality I know. I guess I can't prove anything logically possible isn't true, but I am certainly not going to concern myself with every one of them. I am concerned with judging which of the many possible scenarios makes the most sense based on the evidence and argumentation using my best reason and logic. Again, I don't believe all logical possibilities are equally likely.

I mean I think if you can't objectively demonstrate or at least justify a claim, then there's really no good reason to believe it since there are plenty of Christians and Muslims who've had experiences of Jesus and Muhammad, which is certainly inconsistent with Advaita. There would be no good reason for your claim and experiences to be more valid then there's. I just don't understand the basis of you saying its rational. if you said its faith that you just accept, I mean at least then you wouldn't have a burden of proof to show how its reasonable.

Advaita is not an exclusivist belief system by the way. I actually do believe in a spiritual reality behind things like Christianity and Islam. A lot of your arguments seems to be more against narrow exclusivist beliefs which I agree are more vulnerable to the points you raise.

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

Nope, I don't even claim to know if its possible or not. Saying its possible assumes you know some way of calculating probabilities and I don't know how to calculate the probability of God's existence.

Claiming that you don't know how to calculate the probability of God's existence
is itself a calculation about such a probability.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

The bible has actually been translated and modified several times. Biblical cannon was established via many revisions and debates on what the bible should contain. Some texts were included while others weren't included. And why is something that doesn't improve or evolve suddenly a good thing? I think the bible would be superior if it had been updated and changed to fit the morals of the time.
So how many witches have you exterminated? Have you followed the proper guidelines on linen clothes? Have you decimated any Amalekites yet? Also apparently rape and slavery aren't considered reprehensible in the bible--at least to the point where you'd have to pay a bit of money to the father of the woman and then marry the girl you just raped. There also isn't any statement made against pedophilia, so perhaps you can explain to me why we should live by the standards of the bible. I'm personally against pedophilia, slavery, etc and therefore I could not live by the principles of the bible. And you'd better not say you only follow the new testament because Jesus often references the old testament--he talked about Sodom and Gomorrah, he talked about Genesis, he talked about the ten commandments and many other parts of the old testament. So you cannot reasonably exclude the old testament because Jesus clearly considers it important.

Where for example is the Bible modified.
Those who have tampered, such as the last verses of Mark, have been exposed as spurious verses, thus the Bible itself remain intact. Bible morals have Not changed nor modified. Reap what one sows.

Jesus did Not teach to exterminate witches. Christians are Not under the temporary Constitution of the Mosaic Law. The Salem witch hunts were Not scriptural. Israel was never in the salve-trade business as the world is.
Being under the slavery of the Mosaic Law was a way to get out of debt for No more than 6 years.
Jesus often prefaced his statement with the words, " it is written " meaning already written down in the old Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus even used those Hebrew Scriptures when refuting Satan. So, using the Hebrew Scriptures does Not mean we are under the old Law. Besides the first ten there are about 600 other laws which were All part of the old Law. To me, the old Law is Not considered as being excluded, but that Jesus 'fulfilled' the old Law.
- Romans 10:4. That is why Christians are Not under that old Law, but under the New covenant or contract as mentioned at Luke 22:28-30 foretold by Jeremiah 31:31-33. Christians are to remember Jesus by the date of his death. The Jewish calendar month of Nisan the 14th day which often co-insides with the modern Passover date.
- Luke 22:19