What is the sense of the divine?
A kind of unified super-life of some sort. Imagine a cell in your intestines. It doesn't know you and will never know you. However, because it is "made in your image", so to speak, it has this sense it is part of a greater life form. That's the only way I know how to describe it.
BTW, I'm not directly criticising your position, just stating where I am at.
I fully understand and accept it doesn't translate well to others. Maybe it's my medical training, but I accept that everyone has different perceptions and I shouldn't blame others for not feeling as I feel because there could be some anatomical reason for that. Many Christians blame the atheist for not feeling God, but when you ask, a lot of Christians don't believe God talks either, which is why they are forced to commit idolatry by fixating on the bible. The bible exists and God doesn't seem to, but the bible says He does, so they are freaking out in their minds. At least atheists have an understandable conclusion: they don't sense any type of deity, so they don't believe in one. It's simple and clear cut. I'm open to many conclusions about God's existence because "God" wanted me to learn about others and there are lots of different types of gods out there, from universe creators to inventor of some random human process or device. I no longer feel that "BibleGod" exists as stated, but I'm open to other ideas, like they did exist as human tribal leaders long since dead and we act in their memory or something, or that the universe is the body of a really REALLY big god or something, or whatever.
If we somehow discover it, test and verify it, would we even call it God?
It would depend on if we want to define it as such. There are lots of different types of gods, as seen above. Let's say there is no such thing as a universe creator, but gods can be guardians of some local thing, like a tree or a building or whatever. If you are testing such a god for creating a universe, you will conclude there is no god.
However what if it turns out to be other than what we expected?
We can have a nice laugh and a glass of wine and sigh about it for awhile before going to bed.
Also, I think life would be a cruel worthless joke if we were really brought into this world just to be given the final reward of achievement -Death!
But life could be the reward and death is simply the end credits.
But I hate death. So I must hate life because it leads to death.
...I don't want to die.
Ask God to turn you into a jellyfish?
They are kinda immortal.
How does an afterlife give meaning to this life? How is reality affected by your afterlife options?
What kind of life is so cruel, that it advances so far that it comprehends It's own inevitable death. I don't think other animals have to deal with that. The dung beetle surely doesn't.
I would argue that any life form that tries to avoid death understands death.
If they didn't understand, why bother trying to avoid it?
But how does it feel to know that in about two generations after your death, you will be completely forgotten. All you've done, for absolutely nothing.
Ancient Egyptians believed in a fairly rich afterlife. Do you know who they are? Worse, like that movie Coco, they also believed if their memories were not kept up, they ceased to be or something. We don't know who most of them were, so ....
I was unfortunate enough to be with my mother the day before she died last month. She was in excruciating pain, suffering from pancreatic cancer. The day before she died, she told me she wasn't ready for the grave.
I'm sorry to hear that. I was with my grandfather the day he died. He insisted he accepted it and welcomed it. He was in severe pain from a torn aorta that the surgery apparently didn't fix. It was his time to go. As a nurse, it's sad and somewhat infuriating when acceptance hasn't been reached yet. I've seen too many people suffer horribly because either they or their families wanted an extension.
Regardless of popular beliefs, nobody wants to die. Even When They're suffering.
This is inaccurate. Some people welcome it.
It's going to suck really bad, and It's going to hurt.
Not after the nerves die.
I guess what I was getting at was that partially the reason for my belief in the supernatural is based on my contempt and frustrations with reality - the reality that I might die at a time when I won't want to.
Doesn't having Someone in charge of that make it worse? If I die because of old age or incurable sickness or whatever, my time was up. With a God in charge of my time, then it becomes His whim, which seems even MORE offensive.
.The cruelness of the natural world. I reject it. Like lions who attack weaker cubs. I reject it.
You don't eat?
If sane people are willing to die to testify the existence of God, then we should believe.
Jesus and the apostles were less than willing, or they wouldn't have run so many times. What now?
The Christianity God has a strong reason to hide behind because humans need to be saved by faith.
But it's abundantly clear that God is the "Decider", and can decide what to do with you regardless of what you say or do.
I was brought up Catholic with a strong science education. I started out religious but as time went on the impact of my science education made me an Agnostic. After college, I became more of an atheist, since it was an easier path to follow. When morality is relative, you can get away with more things, and not feel your conscience. The low road was fun for many years.
Please explain the drama in the Catholic (and admittedly, all the other ones too) church if atheism is the moral low road.
A good example of a this on a larger scale is Revelations. This symbolism is analogous to the command lines for a major update in the operating system of a human brain. The final people who are left will be totally different.
I had to crash my computer after an update totally made it unusable.
The bible tells us not to add or change anything, or you will mess up your operating system. This can be fatal.
You realize that's akin to the FBI copyright warning, right? The DVD player isn't going to kill you if you post a scene on youtube.
