If No One Believed In God...

[ChristineM]

Newborns do not believe in the sun either....

Yet they don't have to be indicated to see that the sun exists

 

[Sand Dancer]

Funny that humans have always believed in Gods, then... atheists are a tiny minority.

Yeah, but technically, most people don't believe in all of the gods, so everyone is an atheist in regard to another's pantheon.

 

[ppp]

If it wasn't double speak, then it would appear that you intentionally misrepresented my position. I never said or even implied the two words were interchangeable.

Intentionally, or not, that is what "Existence as an attribute" in response to my post communicated to me. The only connection between the two was the word attribute, so taking them associatively was the only obvious option. I still do not know how else I could have interpreted the sentence fragment.

Many refer to God as an experience, especially those who have had what are known as mystical experiences. I'm demonstrating that if 'sour' can exist as an experience, the there is no reason God cannot.

As I said before:

I don't think that sour exists at all. There is no platonic sour out there somewhere for us to tap into.

One has an experience and it has attributes - sour, hard, scary, cramped, purple. But those are not things. Those are the attributes of the experience of interaction with existing things. If there is some one who claims that their experience is God, then two questions come to mind:

1. what is the existing thing or things that they are experiencing?
2. and how does one define the adjective "god"?

To re-answer your earlier question. Sour does not exist as an experience, because sour does not exist. Sour is merely a descriptor - an adjective - for a thing that exists.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Intentionally, or not, that is what "Existence as an attribute" in response to my post communicated to me. The only connection between the two was the word attribute, so taking them associatively was the only obvious option. I still do not know how else I could have interpreted the sentence fragment.


As I said before:

One has an experience and it has attributes - sour, hard, scary, cramped, purple. But those are not things. Those are the attributes of the experience of interaction with existing things. If there is some one who claims that their experience is God, then two questions come to mind:

1. what is the existing thing or things that they are experiencing?
2. and how does one define the adjective "god"?

To re-answer your earlier question. Sour does not exist as an experience, because sour does not exist. Sour is merely a descriptor - an adjective - for a thing that exists.

Sour is also a noun.

Definition of SOUR

One can have an experience of sour, and one can have an experience of God. Both words, used as such, are nouns, not adjectives, and therefore are a person, place, or thing and are not adjectives or attributes.

 

[ppp]

Sour is also a noun.

View attachment 60071
Definition of SOUR

One can have an experience of sour, and one can have an experience of God. Both words, used as such, are nouns, not adjectives, and therefore are a person, place, or thing and are not adjectives or attributes.

As the old saying goes, Any noun can be verbed.

You are confusing the exploits of grammatical construction that we use to communicate intent for the facts of reality.

The symbol is not the reality. The map is not the territory.

 

[Nakosis]

If No One Believed In God...

Would God exist?

IMO, "God's" existence is irrelevant to what we believe.
IOW, there exists no correlation between the two.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Is it your contention that "sour" and "blue" do not exist in your perceived reality?

It exists in *my* perceived reality, yes.

If you remove humans from existence, then their "perceived reality" is removed with it.
And then "blue" or "sour" no longer is a thing.

For example.... Here's a picture of a flower. To the left, how the flower looks to humans. To the right, how the same flower looks to bees.

Now, remove humans from existence and ask the question "what is yellow?"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Newborns do not believe in the sun either....

Yet nobody needs to tell them about it. They'll discover that object in the sky soon enough by themselves.
But if nobody ever tells you about Shiva, you'll never "discover" that by yourself. Because there's nothing there to discover. It's just tales.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It's entirely relevant.

You used your belief about the experience of having terminal cancer and how you believe you would feel about in an attempt to invalidate how belief makes one feel.

In essence, you invalidated a belief with a belief.

No. I was just making the point that how a particular belief makes us feel, has no bearing on how accurate it is.

Which belief makes us feel in which way, is entirely personal and subjective.
A belief that might me feel good might make you feel bad.

The point is: the emotional impact of a belief has no bearing on its accuracy

 

[sayak83]

Yet nobody needs to tell them about it. They'll discover that object in the sky soon enough by themselves.
But if nobody ever tells you about Shiva, you'll never "discover" that by yourself. Because there's nothing there to discover. It's just tales.

What do you think the 16 years of formal education that a child has to undergo about the physical, logical, social and mathematical world is? Indoctrination into the untruths created by the adults on science, math, history, society etc.?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What do you think the 16 years of formal education that a child has to undergo about the physical, logical, social and mathematical world is? Indoctrination into the untruths created by the adults on science, math, history, society etc.?

No. Science education and "religious indoctrination" is not the same thing.

Here's the thing... suppose that later today, ALL human knowledge and culture is wiped from reality. So we humans need to start over.

All those science facts? They'll eventually resurface. We'll again figure out things like gravity, evolution, germs, plate tectonics, physics, chemistry,.... All those facts will be rediscovered because they are derived from studying reality.

The specific religions we know today however, will never resurface. There will be no christianity, no hinduism, no islam, no judaism, no buddhism,.... Just like there will be no Star Wars, no Lord of the Rings,....

I'm sure people will invent new religions though. Just like they will invent new stories to tell about "a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away". But it won't include The Force or the Skywalkers. Just like it won't includes Jesus and Mohammed.

The stuff you learn in science classes in school is all independently verifiable as it pertains to observable reality.
Religion isn't.

 

[Ella S.]

Any evidence to this?

I don't understand your question.

The Gnostic Monad is something we experience in meditation. We just came up with the name.

Now, Allah is a different story. I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all. It's confusing that they're both called God.

 

[firedragon]

I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all.

Okay. So do you have any evidence to your claim? That "Allah just doesn't exist at all"?

 

[Ella S.]

Okay. So do you have any evidence to your claim? That "Allah just doesn't exist at all"?

Yep. Every documented person who has claimed to speak for God has been lying or delusional, meaning that Mohammad was most likely either lying or delusional. Now it's on you to disprove that.

 

[firedragon]

Yep. Every documented person who has claimed to speak for God has been lying or delusional, meaning that Mohammad was most likely either lying or delusional. Now it's on you to disprove that.

See, this is the epitome of the burden of proof fallacy.

Your claim was that "I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all" and it is your responsibility to prove your case. If you dont understand that fundamental fallacy you are committing, its an absolutely futile discussion.

 

[sayak83]

No. Science education and "untruths" is not the same thing.

Here's the thing... suppose that later today, ALL human knowledge and culture is wiped from reality. So we humans need to start over.

All those science facts? They'll eventually resurface. We'll again figure out things like gravity, evolution, germs, plate tectonics, physics, chemistry,.... All those facts will be rediscovered because they are derived from studying reality.

The specific religions we know today however, will never resurface. There will be no christianity, no hinduism, no islam, no judaism, no buddhism,.... Just like there will be no Star Wars, no Lord of the Rings,....

I'm sure people will invent new religions though. Just like they will invent new stories to tell about "a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away". But it won't include The Force or the Skywalkers. Just like it won't includes Jesus and Mohammed.

The stuff you learn in science classes in school is all independently verifiable as it pertains to observable reality.
Religion isn't.

Religions are models of the divine reality just as theories of science are models of physical reality. For both you can have different models with greater or lesser accuracy but they refer to an underlying truth.

 

[Ella S.]

See, this is the epitome of the burden of proof fallacy.

Your claim was that "I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all" and it is your responsibility to prove your case. If you dont understand that fundamental fallacy you are committing, its an absolutely futile discussion.

I just did prove my case. I gave you evidence that Mohammad was either lying or delusional when he claimed to speak for God, and it's Mohammad's words that give us Allah. If you can't disprove me, then that's your issue, but I'm definitely not side-stepping the burden of proof.

You probably wish I was, because you can't argue against what I just said. Allah is clearly an invention of Mohammad's and not a real being, just like in every other case where somebody claims to speak for a deity.

 

[firedragon]

I just did prove my case. I gave you evidence

Lol. Ella S. Thats not evidence. Thats your faith statement. You are a person who has blind faith.

Unless you provide evidence to your claim "I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all".

I have not made any claim so you are just being logically fallacious.

Cheers.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Religions are models of the divine reality

Claiming it, doesn't make it so

just as theories of science are models of physical reality.

The difference being that the models of science are derived from studying reality, while "models" of religion are the result of "dreams" and "visions" and "revelation" - aka, bare claims, hearsay and unverifiable anecdotes.

Furthermore, scientific models make testable predictions and are therefor falsifiable.
Religious "models" are not, which is why "faith" is required.

And "faith" is not a pathway to truth. Independently verifiable evidence however, is.

For both you can have different models with greater or lesser accuracy but they refer to an underlying truth.

Science is demonstrable.
Religion is indistinguishable from sheer fantasy.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Lol. Ella S. Thats not evidence. Thats your faith statement. You are a person who has blind faith.

Unless you provide evidence to your claim "I'm certain that Allah just doesn't exist at all".

I have not made any claim so you are just being logically fallacious.

Cheers.

So you won't make the claim that Allah is real and Islam is truth?