The Anchor of Faith

[sealchan]

No.
But subjective comes from the mind.
Objective evidence exist outside of the mind, and it is testable.

Cognitive psychology and modern medical-neurological instruments gives the experimental scientists ever growing access to brain activity that we can correlate with conscious thoughts, feelings and attitudes. I'm sure the near future will bring us many interesting discoveries.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

Why would you leave objective, physical evidence as a god?

I cannot prove that my God is real by virtue of physical evidence.

If I was god, I would leave objective evidence so people would know I created the universe.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

Cognitive psychology and modern medical-neurological instruments gives the experimental scientists ever growing access to brain activity that we can correlate with conscious thoughts, feelings and attitudes. I'm sure the near future will bring us many interesting discoveries.

Yes I would hope science discovers more about the mind.

 

[sealchan]

If I was god, I would leave objective evidence so people would know I created the universe.

This sounds obvious. God, after all, in many scriptures seems to want to provide us instruction and believe in Him/Her/It...to worship, etc. And in stories like American Gods by Neil Gaiman it is, in fact, essential to a god to have recognition.

But does God really need our worship? What restrictions would that put on God if it were true? And might there be a reason that God might not make Him/Her/Itself known very clearly?

I have many speculations about whether God needs us or not actually. One is that He does because He isn't fully convinced that He exists. This is an insight I had in my personal experience of God. He needs us conscious beings in our creation because when He created the Universe He wasn't sure He could and after He did He wasn't sure He had! Put yourself in His shoes...if you are alone in a vast nothingness, what way would you have to know that anything you thought you saw or did actually was real or an hallucination? This speculation makes me realize how inadequate most simplistic ideas of God (if He exists) are and how easy they are to make obscure and impractical.

I take such questions as a serious part of my faith. I don't need literal belief in my creative "literary" explorations of what it means to have a relationship with God, to understand who or what God is, to contemplate any and all serious and sincere understandings and, at the end of the day, require no proof for any of it other than the joy I have to engage in such impractical speculations...except that if I am joyful then I have had the practical benefit of a feeling that my day was well spent.

At the end of the day I really don't care whether a person believes in God, my god or no god. I just want open, honest and sincere conversation and debate. The journey for me is more important than the destination as the journey is what my mortal life will be spent doing and beyond that is anyone's sincere guess.

 

[sealchan]

Yes I would hope science discovers more about the mind.

I studied cognitive science in college and was introduced to the whole problem of the mind in Western science...the so-called mind-body problem. In consciousness studies I found a community of philosophers and scientists who dared to ask how science might explore the nature of our subjective conscious understanding. I even went to one of that communities' conferences at the University of Arizona. Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett are two of my favorite philosophers in that area of thinking/research.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

This sounds obvious. God, after all, in many scriptures seems to want to provide us instruction and believe in Him/Her/It...to worship, etc. And in stories like American Gods by Neil Gaiman it is, in fact, essential to a god to have recognition.

But does God really need our worship? What restrictions would that put on God if it were true? And might there be a reason that God might not make Him/Her/Itself known very clearly?

I have many speculations about whether God needs us or not actually. One is that He does because He isn't fully convinced that He exists. This is an insight I had in my personal experience of God. He needs us conscious beings in our creation because when He created the Universe He wasn't sure He could and after He did He wasn't sure He had! Put yourself in His shoes...if you are alone in a vast nothingness, what way would you have to know that anything you thought you saw or did actually was real or an hallucination? This speculation makes me realize how inadequate most simplistic ideas of God (if He exists) are and how easy they are to make obscure and impractical.

I take such questions as a serious part of my faith. I don't need literal belief in my creative "literary" explorations of what it means to have a relationship with God, to understand who or what God is, to contemplate any and all serious and sincere understandings and, at the end of the day, require no proof for any of it other than the joy I have to engage in such impractical speculations...except that if I am joyful then I have had the practical benefit of a feeling that my day was well spent.

At the end of the day I really don't care whether a person believes in God, my god or no god. I just want open, honest and sincere conversation and debate. The journey for me is more important than the destination as the journey is what my mortal life will be spent doing and beyond that is anyone's sincere guess.

So all you have is subjective evidence your personal god is real?
Your faith is believing without evidence?

 

[sealchan]

So all you have is subjective evidence your personal god is real?
Your faith is believing without evidence?

Yes, just remove the word all. What is subjective is incidental to everyone else but essential to one's self. Like your parents, your spouse, your children, your home town, your favorite flavor of ice cream. One doesnt go around saying all I have for a daughter is this daughter or these daughters...you say these are my daughters!

Subjective and objective are different in kind but equal in value. My name, my favorite book, my series of life experiences. Objectively incidental, subjectively meaningful.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

Yes, just remove the word all. What is subjective is incidental to everyone else but essential to one's self. Like your parents, your spouse, your children, your home town, your favorite flavor of ice cream. One doesnt go around saying all I have for a daughter is this daughter or these daughters...you say these are my daughters!

Subjective and objective are different in kind but equal in value. My name, my favorite book, my series of life experiences. Objectively incidental, subjectively meaningful.

Your family are objective, they exist outside of your mind.
What objective evidence do you have any god exist?

 

[sealchan]

Your family are objective, they exist outside of your mind.
What objective evidence do you have any god exist?

Only the evidence of cultural anthropology and human psychology.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

Only the evidence of cultural anthropology and human psychology.

None of that is objective evidence for a god.