Question for Christians and those Who Believe in a Personal God

[wellwisher]

I would like to pose a question to Christians, and anyone who genuinely believes that they have a personal relationship with a god or gods. My primary question is: Have you ever thought that it is possible that this relationship could only exist in your imagination, and not in objective reality?

My answer is yes, due to a promise made by Jesus. Jesus at the end of his time on earth, said he had to go, so he could leave behind a comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would be with "you, collectively" forever; end of the age. This, to me, meant that the spirit of God or Holy Spirit was not longer just for a few chosen Prophets, but rather he would be available to all who believe; more personal or interactive, though others, in real time.

The Bible currently has the Old and New Testament. The Catholic Dogma says God is a trinity. My inner spirit tells me the trinity is somehow connected to a third Testament, that has yet to be compiled. This Testament, will be connected to the works of the Holy Spirit, through people of all persuasions, starting where the New Testament ends, until today and future.

It may have inspired the 2nd century compilation of the New Testament. It was time to come out of hiding. The those in hiding were in spired by the spirit to wait, until a sign. It also inspired the wife of Emperor Constantine of Rome to persuade her husband, the Emperor, to make Christianity the official religion of Rome in the 4th century. She had a large heart and vision. The Spirit inspired the leaders to do this in peace and compromise. This would change the future of the West; blend and integrate.

Unlike the Old and New Testaments, where the spirit was sparse, and only key Prophets or people would connect or speak to God, heresy always an option, the promise would make the spirit more open and available to those who believe. This was to lead to a living religion, anew in each generation, and not one carved into stone, never able to change.

The Catholic Church alone has more than 10,000 Saints who had the spirit; exemplary behavior and achievements plus a miracle or two. But that is not all the people who may have had the Spirit; Dr Martin Luther King had a dream. The spirit also inspired people at other levels of culture, some altering the fate of war and peace as well as with social innovation; US Constitution.

This is not easy to compile in any abbreviated way; Spirit's greatest hits limited to 400 pages. My hope is the Spirit will inspire someone to get the job started. I am not a Vatican History Scholar, but can see the need at this time. It can unify many people, making many niches part of the work of the Spirit.

I do not hear voices or have hallucinations. This is more about creative inspiration and the 20/20 hundsight path I had to take to reach here; pawn of fate and then faith and now acceptance.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Here's another. Do you think of Richard Dawkins as some kind of authority on truth or reality?




John

I would say that Dr. Richard Dawkins is one of the greatest scientists of our generation, and has accomplished more in his life than most people could accomplish in 1000 lifetimes. What is the point of your question and how is it relevant to this thread? Or do you just like to criticize accomplished scientists and thinkers because you wished you could be like them but didn't have the intelligence, diligence, and work ethic to accomplish and discover what they were able to? I already know the answer and so do you.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Could we address the first two questions along with the third?

Sure, if you answer mine

 

[Kenny]

Sure, if you answer mine

LOL… I asked first (the three questions).. a Rational Agnostic wouldn't skip two more objective questions to deal with a more subjective question because the context of the third question is found in the first two questions.

After all, what I need to see is that “ I have a genuine curiosity about this,” is real.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

LOL… I asked first (the three questions).. a Rational Agnostic wouldn't skip two more objective questions to deal with a more subjective question because the context of the third question is found in the first two questions.

"If you insist on making this a back-and-forth conversation instead of letting me control where it leads, then you aren't being rational."

 

[Kenny]

"If you insist on making this a back-and-forth conversation instead of letting me control where it leads, then you aren't being rational."

But it hasn’t been that way. This sounds more argumentative than anything else.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

But it hasn’t been that way. This sounds more argumentative than anything else.

Making disparaging insinuations about someone for not complying with you is pretty argumentative, yes.

 

[JCMIV]

I would like to pose a question to Christians, and anyone who genuinely believes that they have a personal relationship with a god or gods. My primary question is: Have you ever thought that it is possible that this relationship could only exist in your imagination, and not in objective reality? Furthermore, if you are convinced that this god is objectively real and exists outside of your imagination, what are the events that have taken place in your life that have led you to this conclusion, and what demonstrates to you that this god is in fact a real being who answers your prayers and is personally involved in your life on a daily basis, even though others can't see this?

I have a genuine curiosity about this, because there was a time in my life where I could say that I considered myself to be a Christian, however, even during this time, I never actually had any experiences that indicated to me that a god was directly involved in my life or answering my prayers. I prayed multiple times per day as a Christian, in many cases up to 10 or more times per day, but looking back on it, I cannot see even the slightest bit of evidence that there was an all-powerful deity in another dimension who was listening to my prayers and providing answers, or involved in my life at all. However, many of my family members, and many highly intelligent people who I genuinely respect, claim that they *know* with certainty that there is a god that has been involved in their lives and that they have seen and unambiguously felt the presence of God. They are rational, skeptical people in every other aspect of their lives, and say this with utter conviction and certainty and say that they don't understand how anyone could *not* believe in a god. I don't consider myself to be a hardline atheist in the sense that I don't dismiss them completely--it is theoretically possible that they could actually be experiencing a real being that for whatever reason, is impossible for me to detect. However, I think the most likely answer is that they are deluded, as I have not seen any clear and unambiguous demonstration that these experiences are distinguishable from the imaginary. I also think the fact that no Christian can point to a physical location where god exists is strong evidence that he does not exist outside of the mental world--I struggle greatly with understanding the concept of how a being could be objectively real and exist, and yet not exist in a definable, physical location in the universe. How is such a being distinguishable from an imaginary being, and how can we demonstrate the existence of something that only exists in the mental world?

Overall, what I am interested in is hearing your reasoning behind why you believe that your prayers actually are being answered and that there is in fact a god that is communicating with you and involved in your life, and what criteria you use to determine that these experiences are real and distinguishable from a fantasy constructed by your imagination. I would also be interested if you admit that there is a slight possibility that your experiences with God could be imaginary, but that you choose to ignore that possibility and choose to have faith that you are in fact communicating with an objectively real being.

A lot of time could be spent just answering you first question, "Have you ever thought that it is possible that this relationship could only exist in your imagination, and not in objective reality?".

Everything is sort of in your imagine in the first place. Your nervous system, working through the five senses, presents a ton of information to your brain. Your brain turns that info into symbols, for example: a particular wavelength of light is symbolized by what we understand as color, vibration we understand as sound, so on and so on. All these symbols of what the nervous system collects are presented to our consciousness. Does not all this happen inside us? Like a video game, your not directly experiencing the Mushroom Kingdom when you play Super Mario, it's all happening through a screen as you interact with it through a controller. Your body is like a controller, your mind like a screen, your consciousness like a player. Is not all experience happening inside you? So you may not be experiencing anything outside of yourself directly. It's all filtered through your nervous system, turned into familiar symbols, presented to your consciousness.

If God created the world by thinking it up, and speaking it out, as some believe, then right from the get go we and everything else are purely God's imagination. Just like everyone and everything in your dreams is just you, you conjured it all up, without any effort. It all happens inside you, then you effortlessly destroy it instantly when you wake up.

 

[John D. Brey]

I would say that Dr. Richard Dawkins is one of the greatest scientists of our generation, and has accomplished more in his life than most people could accomplish in 1000 lifetimes. What is the point of your question and how is it relevant to this thread? Or do you just like to criticize accomplished scientists and thinkers because you wished you could be like them but didn't have the intelligence, diligence, and work ethic to accomplish and discover what they were able to? I already know the answer and so do you.

One good trait of a thinker or scientist is to try not to jump to conclusions. We should be careful in how we interpret data. For instance, you seem to immediately assume the sparse data I presented implied I'm critical of Dawkins, or that I'm going to criticize his accomplishments. Adding insult to injury, you then do what's one of my personal pet peeves: judge someone's motives as though you see past their words to the motives behind them. The best we can do is judge the words a person says. To imply we can judge the motives behind them and then use the motives to interpret the sparse statements in a fuller way gets really problematic.

Fwiw, I noticed you had a picture of Richard Dawkins juxtaposed with what is I assume your own photo. That implies a pretty serious respect for Dawkins. And while I don't place him on the pedestal you do, nevertheless I have, and have read, most of his books. I've quoted him literally hundreds of times in this forum. So my point in bringing him up was merely to acknowledge your apparent respect for him (based on your avatar) and to gauge its depth before I addressed him or his ideas in any way with you.

We now see how wise my testing of the waters was since your response at least suggests in a loose way that Richard Dawkins might be something like canonical for you; meaning that your respect for him might make objectivity regarding his ideas suspect.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

A lot of time could be spent just answering you first question, "Have you ever thought that it is possible that this relationship could only exist in your imagination, and not in objective reality?".

Everything is sort of in your imagine in the first place. Your nervous system, working through the five senses, presents a ton of information to your brain. Your brain turns that info into symbols, for example: a particular wavelength of light is symbolized by what we understand as color, vibration we understand as sound, so on and so on. All these symbols of what the nervous system collects are presented to our consciousness. Does not all this happen inside us? Like a video game, your not directly experiencing the Mushroom Kingdom when you play Super Mario, it's all happening through a screen as you interact with it through a controller. Your body is like a controller, your mind like a screen, your consciousness like a player. Is not all experience happening inside you? So you may not be experiencing anything outside of yourself directly. It's all filtered through your nervous system, turned into familiar symbols, presented to your consciousness.

If God created the world by thinking it up, and speaking it out, as some believe, then right from the get go we and everything else are purely God's imagination. Just like everyone and everything in your dreams is just you, you conjured it all up, without any effort. It all happens inside you, then you effortlessly destroy it instantly when you wake up.

People who haven't read a lot of Einstein think when he said that imagination is more important than knowledge he was just trying to make a silly meme to go on a poster. But in fact he supports that supposition in a thoughtful way.




John

 

[Rational Agnostic]

One good trait of a thinker or scientist is to try not to jump to conclusions. We should be careful in how we interpret data. For instance, you seem to immediately assume the sparse data I presented implied I'm critical of Dawkins, or that I'm going to criticize his accomplishments. Adding insult to injury, you then do what's one of my personal pet peeves: judge someone's motives as though you see past their words to the motives behind them. The best we can do is judge the words a person says. To imply we can judge the motives behind them and then use the motives to interpret the sparse statements in a fuller way gets really problematic.

Fwiw, I noticed you had a picture of Richard Dawkins juxtaposed with what is I assume your own photo. That implies a pretty serious respect for Dawkins. And while I don't place him on the pedestal you do, nevertheless I have, and have read, most of his books. I've quoted him literally hundreds of times in this forum. So my point in bringing him up was merely to acknowledge your apparent respect for him (based on your avatar) and to gauge its depth before I addressed him or his ideas in any way with you.

We now see how wise my testing of the waters was since your response at least suggests in a loose way that Richard Dawkins might be something like canonical for you; meaning that your respect for him might make objectivity regarding his ideas suspect.



John

Point taken, however, I think my conclusion that you are critical of Dawkins still stands, and what you stated above definitely suggests this. I have a lot of respect for Dawkins, yes, but I don't view what he says as "canonical" or an infallible source of truth about reality like religious people view their scriptures. I critically analyze what he and anyone else claims about reality and use my own judgment and reasoning to decide if I agree or disagree with it.

As far as my profile photo goes, I hate to disappoint you, although my real name is Sam, I am in fact not Sam Harris.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

LOL… I asked first (the three questions).. a Rational Agnostic wouldn't skip two more objective questions to deal with a more subjective question because the context of the third question is found in the first two questions.

After all, what I need to see is that “ I have a genuine curiosity about this,” is real.

Your first three questions (especially the second and third) are highly theoretical and are asking me about characteristics of God--in order for the questions to have any meaning or importance or relevance to me, I would have to assume God exists which as you know I don't assume or assert this. That's why I addressed your last question first and asked you a very simple and practical question. I also asked you what you think a godless universe would look like, if humans would still invent and believe in a god in such a universe, and if you think that coincidences that make it look like a god exists to people who want to attribute them to a god would still occur in a godless universe and you didn't answer those either.

 

[Kenny]

Your first three questions (especially the second and third) are highly theoretical and are asking me about characteristics of God--in order for the questions to have any meaning or importance or relevance to me

OK… maybe we lost something in the trajectory that we have forged. Even before that you question how a God of love would permit evil things. My response was that earth belonged to man according to Genesis 1.

Obviously we are speaking within the light of Christian scriptures. In your case, I assume, everything will be theoretical until you are convinced that God is real. But in light of the question, it is man that has the control of this world.

, I would have to assume God exists which as you know I don't assume or assert this. That's why I addressed your last question first and asked you a very simple and practical question. I also asked you what you think a godless universe would look like, if humans would still invent and believe in a god in such a universe, and if you think that coincidences that make it look like a god exists to people who want to attribute them to a god would still occur in a godless universe and you didn't answer those either.

And thus, my questions addressed this issue.

I think it is pretty obvious by what we see in this world what a godless world would look like. I don’t think I need to enumerate them IMO unless you ask for it.

I don’t think trying to convince someone that there is a God is what we need to do. If you are a seeker, you will continue to ask questions that are relevant to what is important to you.

What question is important to you?

 

[soulsurvivor]

I would like to pose a question to Christians, and anyone who genuinely believes that they have a personal relationship with a god or gods. My primary question is: Have you ever thought that it is possible that this relationship could only exist in your imagination, and not in objective reality? Furthermore, if you are convinced that this god is objectively real and exists outside of your imagination, what are the events that have taken place in your life that have led you to this conclusion, and what demonstrates to you that this god is in fact a real being who answers your prayers and is personally involved in your life on a daily basis, even though others can't see this?

I have a personal relationship with multiple gods. I don't believe any these gods are personally involved in my life. I am too unimportant for them to take personal interest. But these gods have human agents who do act on their behalf and I have personally interacted with such human agents.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

OK… maybe we lost something in the trajectory that we have forged. Even before that you question how a God of love would permit evil things. My response was that earth belonged to man according to Genesis 1.

Obviously we are speaking within the light of Christian scriptures. In your case, I assume, everything will be theoretical until you are convinced that God is real. But in light of the question, it is man that has the control of this world.



And thus, my questions addressed this issue.

I think it is pretty obvious by what we see in this world what a godless world would look like. I don’t think I need to enumerate them IMO unless you ask for it.

I don’t think trying to convince someone that there is a God is what we need to do. If you are a seeker, you will continue to ask questions that are relevant to what is important to you.

What question is important to you?

I think we may be getting somewhere now. Yes, I would definitely be interested in specifically what you think a godless world would look like. How would a world created by a god and given to humans to rule differ from a world not created by a god? Is there any reason to suppose that people would not invent and believe in a god in a world where a god did not exist? I know you of course believe that God exists in this world, but *if* you can imagine a world where God did not exist, do you think that you would still believe God existed if you lived in that world?

 

[Rational Agnostic]

I have a personal relationship with multiple gods. I don't believe any these gods are personally involved in my life. I am too unimportant for them to take personal interest. But these gods have human agents who do act on their behalf and I have personally interacted with such human agents.

Can you share more about this?

 

[Kenny]

I think we may be getting somewhere now. Yes, I would definitely be interested in specifically what you think a godless world would look like.

We could start from the very beginning and take it in different stages of “what if”. Obviously we can only offer opinions as we are creating scenarios to our own imaginations...

But, again supposing, it did… Sex trade would be rampant beyond. Even as we see the raping of babies, it would become even more twisted. Wars would be beyond imaginations. So, basically, take all the anomalies and exponentially create them.

You could say, if God is a God of love, you would take love away. All you have left is an imagination bent on selfishness.

How would a world created by a god and given to humans to rule differ from a world not created by a god?

Personally, if evolution was the method, it would have not accomplished what we see today. IMV

Is there any reason to suppose that people would not invent and believe in a god in a world where a god did not exist?

Wow… who knows? Let’s take both sides.

If they did, they would eventually come to the place as we have seen in history, “I am god” as did some of the Pharaohs and some of the Ceasars.

If they didn’t, they would be a god unto themselves.

I know you of course believe that God exists in this world, but *if* you can imagine a world where God did not exist, do you think that you would still believe God existed if you lived in that world?

LOL… who knows? Maybe the same answers as above taking both alternatives?

these are all hypotheticals, of course.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Can you share more about this?

This is not unique to me. If a someone personally interacted with Jesus (when he was alive), I am sure he would not need anything else to be convinced of the existence of 'the Father'.

As for myself, I have interacted with some persons such as Sathya Sai Baba and that has been enough to convince me (Here is a talk where Sam Harris mentions him

)

The actual Gods by the way are really too busy to intervene in lives of individual humans, in fact they don't even know 90% of humans by name (although they would know all about you if they ever met you). The Gods only act through their agents (or Avatars) such as Jesus. Here is a thesis written on SaiBaba in particular and Avatars in general: Sathya Sai Baba as Avatar: "His Story" and the History of an Idea - CORE Reader

If you are really interested in knowing more, you should read this page: World Organization

 

[Rational Agnostic]

We could start from the very beginning and take it in different stages of “what if”. Obviously we can only offer opinions as we are creating scenarios to our own imaginations...

But, again supposing, it did… Sex trade would be rampant beyond. Even as we see the raping of babies, it would become even more twisted. Wars would be beyond imaginations. So, basically, take all the anomalies and exponentially create them.

You could say, if God is a God of love, you would take love away. All you have left is an imagination bent on selfishness.

I'm not sure you realize how much evil and suffering exists in the world already. There are people who have suffered unimaginably and lived through hell and all kinds of f**ked up evil things worse than anything you can imagine. Not to mention, the brutal suffering of animals that exists all around the world, where animals have to compete for resources, fight to the death, and starve. 99%+ of species that have ever existed have gone extinct. This seems a lot like a world where a god does not exist to me.

Personally, if evolution was the method, it would have not accomplished what we see today. IMV

This is another topic--evolution is an established scientific fact whether God exists or not. I can point you to some books that do a great job of explaining the evidence of evolution if you are interested.

Wow… who knows? Let’s take both sides.

If they did, they would eventually come to the place as we have seen in history, “I am god” as did some of the Pharaohs and some of the Ceasars.

If they didn’t, they would be a god unto themselves.



LOL… who knows? Maybe the same answers as above taking both alternatives?

these are all hypotheticals, of course.

This is an interesting response. It sounds like you are saying that if God did not exist, we would see many of the same results that we have seen throughout history, and you don't know whether or not you would believe in God in a godless universe or not. I appreciate your honesty on that. But here is my point: If you think that it is possible that you could still be convinced that a god exists in a godless universe, how is the fact that you believe in a god evidence that that belief is in fact correct and that a god does in fact exist in this universe?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I would say that Dr. Richard Dawkins is one of the greatest scientists of our generation,

That is just embarrassingly silly.