Sheldon
Veteran Member
No they're not, what a spectacularly stupid claim. Just look the words up.
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If you believe in a god(any god)
- Thread starter We Never Know
- Start date
No they're not, what a spectacularly stupid claim. Just look the words up.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
As a Wiccan and polytheist, I have faith that the multiple gods and goddesses that I believe in exist because I cannot provide any empirical or verifiable evidence of their existence. I'm only human after all, and therefore I lack the omniscience, omnipotence, or capacity to always be present everywhere in order to provide the empirical or verifiable evidence that these deities actually exist. I found myself in the same dilemma when I was still a Christian as well. I couldn't provide empirical and verifiable evidence that God exists, just as I can't provide empirical and verifiable evidence now that God does not actually exist. As a result, I believe it is correct for me to say that I have some faith in these multiple deities, just as I once had faith in the God of the Bible when I was a Christian.
Regarding my adherence to spiritualism, I have many years of personal experience as a psychic medium and have accumulated evidence as a paranormal investigator to substantiate my beliefs in it. My psychic mediumship abilities to communicate and interact with the dead have been confirmed by people I've never met or seen before who have witnessed me reveal personal information to them previously known only to them and their deceased loved one(s). In addition to validating my spiritualist beliefs through my personal interactions with human spirits, I've also researched and investigated the paranormal over the past few years, traveled across the country to investigate well-known and rumored haunted areas, and collaborated with other paranormal investigators to assist their investigations into numerous haunted locations. Furthermore, I have accumulated evidence of my encounters as well as other paranormal activity using my own ghost-hunting equipment, and much of my evidence has been examined and validated by other people (paranormal investigators and skeptics alike) whom I've either met in person or who I've corresponded with online.
We Never Know
No Slack
I thought people believed because of faith, not had faith because they believed.
Someone far wiser than myself once said it is important to differentiate between what humans say about gods and what the gods actually are.
The long and the short of it is very little can be said about the gods (or reality) in any ultimate sense. All experiences and knowledge are limited to human faculties, so to me the question to focus on is what role the gods/reality play in human experience. Painting in the broadest and most inclusive strokes I can muster, the only thing that can really be said about the gods is that it is sort of like a title bestowed upon something that a people deem worthy of worship (aka, respect, high regard, celebration, awe, wonderment, sometimes fear). Beyond that, the details of what the gods actually are is subject to the multitude of cultural lenses that help humanity relate itself to things greater than (or external to) itself. Ultimately, the gods are what you decide they are and cultures throughout history have designated... pretty much everything with divine title.
Perhaps because of that, I don't tend to frame my "belief" in the gods as a belief at all. The gods are. People experience them and then understand them in a myriad of different ways. To me, the gods and reality are largely indistinguishable; "gods" is an honorific title while "reality" describe the state of being. Unsurprisingly, I also don't think about "evidence" for the gods any more than most people think about "evidence" for reality. The question on the face of it is a little bit silly when your gods are the various forces and aspects of all realities. And our polytheist ancestors very much deified aspects of reality in this way - there wasn't some wedge placed between "nature" and "gods." As a Pagan, I'm of a similar vein. Want evidence for the gods? Read a science textbook... since is literally a systematic study of the gods I honor.
The long and the short of it is very little can be said about the gods (or reality) in any ultimate sense. All experiences and knowledge are limited to human faculties, so to me the question to focus on is what role the gods/reality play in human experience. Painting in the broadest and most inclusive strokes I can muster, the only thing that can really be said about the gods is that it is sort of like a title bestowed upon something that a people deem worthy of worship (aka, respect, high regard, celebration, awe, wonderment, sometimes fear). Beyond that, the details of what the gods actually are is subject to the multitude of cultural lenses that help humanity relate itself to things greater than (or external to) itself. Ultimately, the gods are what you decide they are and cultures throughout history have designated... pretty much everything with divine title.
Perhaps because of that, I don't tend to frame my "belief" in the gods as a belief at all. The gods are. People experience them and then understand them in a myriad of different ways. To me, the gods and reality are largely indistinguishable; "gods" is an honorific title while "reality" describe the state of being. Unsurprisingly, I also don't think about "evidence" for the gods any more than most people think about "evidence" for reality. The question on the face of it is a little bit silly when your gods are the various forces and aspects of all realities. And our polytheist ancestors very much deified aspects of reality in this way - there wasn't some wedge placed between "nature" and "gods." As a Pagan, I'm of a similar vein. Want evidence for the gods? Read a science textbook... since is literally a systematic study of the gods I honor.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
It's the same thing. If I say I believe, it's the same as saying I have faith.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Do you feel better when you insult others?
I hope so.
We Never Know
No Slack
Really?? I have heard people say "I still believe in god but have lost faith in him"
I have understood faith means loyalty. And I want to be loyal to God, because I think He is good. But my belief is based on the existence of this world, life and the Bible. I don't think we would have life and the Bible without God.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
What they mean is they don't trust him anymore but believe he exists. So they still have faith that he exists.
But if you believe in God biblically that is the same as having faith and trust in God.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
The God I believe in doesn't come from personal evidence or faith, but in the eternal progression we as humans exist to understand nature and our role in it. The understanding and proclamation of this happening doesn't require superstitious behavior and avoids any nihilism from the lack thereof. We are becoming just as the Omniverse is, and that means our existence will extend forever, from before our births to after our deaths. Remember the law of the conservation of energy: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it just transfers from one type to another. I may have been born at one time, but my energy, your energy, everybody's energy, has always and will forever continue to exist.
ppp
Well-Known Member
That's not a god. That just physical stuff interacting.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
“Physical stuff interacting” is the definition of God to a pantheist, and if it results in evolution, it also the definition of God to a syntheist too.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Meh. Then there is no point in calling it god.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
In our universe, spacetime and entropy is expanding indefinitely, if our human extropy continues to expand as indefinitely and expansively as the other two, then everything will be Omniversal and exist with the same God-like features that The Omniverse already has. Divinity is its attributes and includes the Verse - spacetime and matter - Entropy and Extropy. Entropy and Extropy have their Omniversal qualities, and when something possesses all ten characteristics they become divine itself. Sand on the beach may appear to be just sand on the beach, but if that exact sand existed eternally forever on an infinite number of beaches, would itself not be God? Being Omniversal means something exists similar to The Omniverse and its own divinity. Eventually humans will create our own indefinite Verses with their own indefinite Entropic and Extropic qualities, thus the amount of divinity is always increasing, like the Universe, like The Omniverse, but never truly infinite. This eternal progression is what I consider to be God, as both a pantheist and syntheist. I call this revelation the Pantheosis, or “all becoming God.” The end result is Omnitheism, or each entity being its own God, someday. Remember, God is what nature is becoming.
ppp
Well-Known Member
I don't think that entropy means what you think it means.
syo
Well-Known Member
Evidence.