What is your belief in regards to God?

[Deathbydefault]

What is your scientific and/or rational explanation for why there is something rather than nothing?

Don't have one, and neither do you I should assume.
Jumping to "God did it" didn't seem appealing to me when I first came to such questions.

I guess we'll eventually figure it out, or we wont. It's just that simple.

I didn't think so.

Let me have you answer the same question, then.

Still waiting on a response.

 

[leibowde84]

Still waiting on a response.

He won't answer ... stubbornness is tough to get over.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Cats recognize our existence, which is evidenced in their actions.

Which you determine through your mind no doubt.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Cats recognize our existence, which is evidenced in their actions.

Which you determine through your mind no doubt.

 

[Robert.Evans]

I'm just asking why you call it God if there is no factual evidence for God...

Let"s both admit that there is a tree.
The tree factually exists. We both know that.
But by your reasoning, that tree is evidence for God because "God is everything." Why?

If I said that the tree was evidence of Pookiwumbi the Earth God, would that explanation satisfy you?

But you'd be making that up wouldn't you, silly.

 

[Robert.Evans]

I'm just asking why you call it God if there is no factual evidence for God...

Let"s both admit that there is a tree.
The tree factually exists. We both know that.
But by your reasoning, that tree is evidence for God because "God is everything." Why?

If I said that the tree was evidence of Pookiwumbi the Earth God, would that explanation satisfy you?

But you'd be making that up wouldn't you, silly.

 

[Robert.Evans]

I'm just asking why you call it God if there is no factual evidence for God...

Let"s both admit that there is a tree.
The tree factually exists. We both know that.
But by your reasoning, that tree is evidence for God because "God is everything." Why?

If I said that the tree was evidence of Pookiwumbi the Earth God, would that explanation satisfy you?

But you'd be making that up wouldn't you, silly.

 

[jonathan180iq]

But you'd be making that up wouldn't you, silly.

No, sir. I am not just making that up.

I did get the name wrong. It's Pikki Woki.

And even if I was just making that up, how would your explanation of trees being evidence for God and my explanation of trees being evidence of Pikki Woki be any different?

 

[leibowde84]

Which you determine through your mind no doubt.

Our brains recognize certain behaviors, yes.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How can it not? It comes from God. Do you not understand?

It's not computing in my ol' noggin'.

Belief

Is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty.

This means that a person's belief in God (regardless if it comes from God or Zues) is only something he thinks/trusts/hopes to be true even though there is no empirical evidence to prove that is a fact.

You say "it comes from God, so it's knowledge/true/fact". There are many beliefs in many different gods. So, what you are saying is not objective. It is not a fact. Your knowledge becomes what you know or fact when it can be proven for all people even if they don't believe in it. Until then, from everyone's perspective not only yours, it is a belief.

Knowledge

Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Knowledge, on the other hand, is something that you can prove. It is based on experiences and skills that you can use confirm the fact of a particular subject in question.



Belief in God does not fit this criteria. If it did, then all of us will know your God and hence, we would know it is real. Then we have the choice to trust it or not. Until then, it is only a belief that is knowledge to you. It is not a fact until you can use education, theoretical, or practical understanding and testing of that knowledge to know it is true.

Once you test your belief, find it's true, it becomes fact. You do not need belief anymore. You KNOW it is true. We would all know it is true. Regardless of what we believe about it.

Until then, it is a belief. It may be knowledge to you since it came from God, but objectively, it is not.

There is nothing wrong with that. You just have to understand the terms and applications of them objectively not from your own belief.

Perhaps all of us do die when you die. But perhaps that is just in your reality. Perhaps there are many realities, one for each of us. Then you are truly free and interact with YOURSELF and so hurt no one else. Is that not Just? I think so.

Remember I said, "life does not exist because I do." and you said "How do you know?"

Of course life could be just my reality; however, I am speaking objectively.

I have no clue (subjectively) if you guys will exist after I am dead. From my point of view you will not. Objectively I have a 99.9% chance you will. Only because the existence of life does not revolve around me, objectively. It only does subjectively. We can say perhaps; perhaps; perhaps. That doesn't change that we are not the center of attention.

We are not the center of the universe. Our beliefs included.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Ha. I have a pride and ego moment just now; and, I'm liking it.

 

[allfoak]

You said that "God tells us". Yet, you claim that God's voice comes from within. So, you have to admit that you can't say whether God has spoken to anyone other than yourself, right?

What i know is this...
I am following in the footsteps of those that make the same claims as myself.
I am proving these claims for myself.

It is the only way, for as you say i have to admit to you and anyone else that i speak with, that i cannot prove my claims to you.
We all have to decide to take up our own cross and prove the truth from the inside out.
It is kind of like dying.

I heard a little girl say once that dying was like turning inside out.
If you want to hear the voice of God you must turn yourself inside out.

I can't do that for you or anyone else.

 

[allfoak]

What were you referring to here then?

The desire to seek comes from within.

 

[jonathan180iq]

What i know is this...
I am following in the footsteps of those that make the same claims as myself.
I am proving these claims for myself.

It is the only way, for as you say i have to admit to you and anyone else that i speak with, that i cannot prove my claims to you.
We all have to decide to take up our own cross and prove the truth from the inside out.
It is kind of like dying.

I heard a little girl say once that dying was like turning inside out.
If you want to hear the voice of God you must turn yourself inside out.

I can't do that for you or anyone else.

Exactly.

This, right here, is admission that we all must make when dealing with our different worldviews, and it's that some are more grounded in reality than others. It's an admission of subjective bias.

You're essentially just saying "I like my belief better. So I'm sticking with it."

Now, that doesn't make your belief a bad thing. It's simply a fact that there's little about your faith that can be substantiated outside of very subjective logic. The same is true of almost every other religious or metaphysical claim.

 

[allfoak]

Exactly.

This, right here, is admission that we all must make when dealing with our different worldviews, and it's that some are more grounded in reality than others. It's an admission of subjective bias.

You're essentially just saying "I like my belief better. So I'm sticking with it."

Now, that doesn't make your belief a bad thing. It's simply a fact that there's little about your faith that can be substantiated outside of very subjective logic. The same is true of almost every other religious or metaphysical claim.

I am not saying any such thing.
I am saying that there is one narrow path that must be walked by each individual.
This is the only way to prove the truth.
It is to walk the straight and narrow path.
Those that criticize what i say do so because they have not proven the truth for themselves.

What i say has little or nothing to do with belief.
Proving the truth happens through experiencing the truth.

 

[jonathan180iq]

I am not saying any such thing.
I am saying that there is one narrow path that must be walked by each individual.
This is the only way to prove the truth.
It is to walk the straight and narrow path.
Those that criticize what i say do so because they have not proven the truth for themselves.

What i say has little or nothing to do with belief.
Proving the truth happens through experiencing the truth.

So you're not using the words "truth" here to imply anything other than what each person comes to conclude for themselves? The only way to make what you're saying work is to not strictly define "truth" to only meaning that thing which you have determined to be true through your own personal, internal, conclusions, right?

Or do you mean something else, where "truth" as you use it, actually is a stand in word for the narrow things that you've decided about the world?

 

[allfoak]

What is Truth...?

Is this just a measurement of what a lie is not?

What is a lie...?
Is it not just a measurement of what the truth is not?

What is in the middle of this measuring line?
Less truth?
More lies?
Less lies?
More truth?

It doesn't seem to work.

We live in a world of billions of people not one of which has the same perspective as another.
If i was educated in the USA and a friend of mine was educated in Communist China we would have very different ideas about this thing called truth.

Yet, we are both born, grow up and live out our adult lives thinking opposite things are the truth.
How is this possible?
How is it possible for people to live out their entire lives thinking something is the truth while others believe it to be a lie?
How is it that we can live out our entire lives without ever really knowing anything for certain?

Who really knows the truth?
Where does it come from?
Can we trust anyone to tell us?

Is the truth learned, or is it discovered?

 

[leibowde84]

I am not saying any such thing.
I am saying that there is one narrow path that must be walked by each individual.
This is the only way to prove the truth.
It is to walk the straight and narrow path.
Those that criticize what i say do so because they have not proven the truth for themselves.

What i say has little or nothing to do with belief.
Proving the truth happens through experiencing the truth.

What, specifically, do you mean by "prove" and "truth"? Can you define those terms for us?

 

[Mycroft]

Raised by a religious mother, atheistic father. Never became religious myself because Science.

 

[Mycroft]

What is Truth...?

A nonsense word.