The Existence of God

[Lightkeeper]

I witnessed this today.

You can't prove your own existence, so how can you prove the existence of God.

What are your thoughts?

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

I witnessed this today.

What are your thoughts?

See Rene Descartes: "Cogito, ergo sum."

What he was trying to get at was "what can I really know for certain," and his answer was "not much!" But, he could, in his own view, decide that because he was thinking about the question, there must at least exist a thinker. Thinking without a thinker seemed impossible.

See also Samuel Johnson's remark concerning Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter. When it was remarked to Johnson that it was impossible to refute, Johnson immediately kicked a large stone on the ground and said, "I refute it thus!"

I rather think that the amazing philosophical sophistry that permits these sorts of arguments to go on interminably -- while arguing for the exclusion from the debate of everything which we perceive around us -- is sucking up vast amounts of intellectual energy, for not a great deal of return on the investment.

Could it possibly be that the desperation to prove that human life ain't what it seems to be is that great? And you know, I suspect to some extent that might be true.

[metis]

There's a difference between "prove" and "evidence". In science we tend to use the latter much more often than the former. So if we look at it from that perspective, is there more evidence that we exist or that God exists?

[angeleyes]

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

Could it possibly be that the desperation to prove that human life ain't what it seems to be is that great? And you know, I suspect to some extent that might be true.

I don't know, EH - I can't say I've ever known anyone who is "desperate" to prove that human life ain't what it seems to be....To the contrary, most people really want to believe in the reality of this world. And, according to your statement, you would have to include quantum physicists in your group of "desperate" people, for proposing alternate views of reality that are well beyond what most people would even imagine to be true.

It appears sometimes that such terms as "desperate" (as well as those describing people's beliefs as wishful thinking, on par with orbiting teapots, and monsters made of spaghetti, etc) could actually be a desperate attempt to discredit all religious ideas and viewpoints.........???

[mooomooo]

It appears sometimes that such terms as "desperate" (as well as those describing people's beliefs as wishful thinking, on par with orbiting teapots, and monsters made of spaghetti, etc) could actually be a desperate attempt to discredit all religious ideas and viewpoints.........???

angeleyes , Perhaps your words above are from 'Above' lol but seriously , l do mean that .
Could God actually be in our behaviour is what you may be suggesting and is correct however the only desperate thing on God's agenda is an unknown concept to Man and you almost hit it right on but be cautious because as you are learning , angeleyes , you become a living particepant in this unreal reality going on here on Earth and you would not be aware of it but you would be able to sense it which l know you do .
You may be amazed at what is coming your way in the realnms of this learning of Hiatory and God and Jesus etc .
I can go by what l saw with my own eyes and even if l was crazy l still saw what l saw and still did what l did and l don't need Faith anymore because l already know because l witnessed it and l am living it today .

What am l to think when wide awake l see my tiny deceased dog Mooskee's stuffy fly across the room and leaving a trail which caught up to the stuffy where it landed on the back of the couch . l know what l saw and l would be more than happy to announce that it was all a delusion or illusion if that be the case . But it is not that way and what l have witnessed is real and of course l understand why you cannot believe this and that is because it seems so unreal . But l ask any one of you here ,, If this stuff happened to you every day what would you think .
Try imagining that you saw a dead person 'neck' with you for many minutes and then she went 'POOF' gone . What would you think if it happened to you and you know it is real ,, WHAT WOULD YOU REALLY DO OR THINK OF THIS .
Try to pretend [just for me ] it happened to you and please tell me what you would feel of this if it happened to you ,,, a person coming from the dead ,,a stuffy flying across the room ,, Remote Healing a fractured spine etc.

What would you feel , and might you feel it is from God .

[Travis Clementsmith]

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

See Rene Descartes: "Cogito, ergo sum."

Of course, translated literally, is actually "Consciousness, hence being." Thinking is an endeavor of the intellect, but the intellect may only be one manifestation of consciousness. I think intellect was born to solve (and create) problems, that's its function, I just don't think we ought to limit consciousness to that one activity.

-TC

[mooomooo]

Suppose God decided to randomly select a person to communicate with to show that person that God is indeed true and not fiction . In the 'process' of God selecting an appropriate 'candidate' to tell the Truth to , God would have to be sure that this Person can handle such an unusual reality and not go insane .
So throughout this 'selected' person's life God will present situations of absurd reality for you to Witness and each event is so unreal yet real you know something is going on in your life that seems different than what others are experiencing .

Surely God is not going to open up Lake Ontario with the wave of one's hands just to prove to Atheists that God is real . In that same respect God is not allowing these 'Miracles' today because if allowed Man will develop these tricky realities into areas which will lead Man on the road to Mass Destruction as Man plays and toils with this New Power.
And if Man knew how Jesus did the Healings with rationale , Man will take this knowledge and incorporate it to light speed travel and so much more that Man will destroy itself as Man searches for 'what else' can be done with this New Healing Power in other areas , and this will lead to mistakes and much loss of life . For example .. if a Terrorist had access to Jesus's Healing and other Powers they could rule the world in an instant with the Power involved in a Healing of a 'coma' etc .

So God is making sure that we do not know the Secrets of Jesus's Healings etc by allowing Faith to be the only prerequisite to enter the Kingdom of God . And when you think of it , it is not too much for our Creator to only ask us to live in Faith of our Creator's reality and that is all God seeks from us and all we need do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven .

You do not need to 'neck' with a 'ghost' to enter the Kingdom of God and all that is needed is Faith that God is real and watching over us daily . This is not much to ask of us from our Father in Heaven that all God wants from us individually is to care and be kind to others less fortunate than ourselves and keep your Faith in God intact .

The reason Faith is so important and Valid is that it plays the major role in our lives today in respect to the living real God

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by Travis Clementsmith

Of course, translated literally, is actually "Consciousness, hence being." Thinking is an endeavor of the intellect, but the intellect may only be one manifestation of consciousness. I think intellect was born to solve (and create) problems, that's its function, I just don't think we ought to limit consciousness to that one activity.

-TC

I don't think so. Descartes spoke and wrote in French, translating only later into Latin, the scientific Lingua Franca of his day. So what he wrote originally was "Je pense, donc je suis." And you can see that this does not suffer any of the ambiguities of Latin sans pronouns. "I am thinking, therefore I exist."

So when you say "just one manifestation of consciousness," you are proposing consciousness that pre-exists (or exists apart from) anything that we poor humans are aware of to support it.

Once again, we are faced with this idea, which so far as I can discover is based on absolutely no evidence, or even a workable hypothesis, of how this pre-existing consciousness might be supported. So far, the workers in the field of consciousness studies are pretty much unanimously agreed (even though they don't know how it works yet) that consciousness is a manifestation of complex central nervous systems.

And for the record, I list the names of those who I have personally read, and who agree that consciousness does not exist without a nervous system to support it: that is, consciousness is a manifestation of a physical system, not something in some way separate from it:

Bernard Baars, Ned Block, David Chalmers, Patricia Churchland, Paul Churchland, Francis Crick, Daniel Dennett, Susan Greenfield, Richard Gregory, Stuart Hameroff, Christoff Koch, Stephen LaBerge, Thomas Metzinger, Kevin O'Regan, Roger Penrose, Vilayanur Ramachandran, John Searle, Petra Stoerig, Francisco Varela, Max Velmans, Daniel Wegner.

[angeleyes]

Originally Posted by evangelicalhumanist

So far, the workers in the field of consciousness studies are pretty much unanimously agreed (even though they don't know how it works yet) that consciousness is a manifestation of complex central nervous systems.

Yes, it's interesting that they know SO much, yet admit that that have no idea how it "works"! :-)

[evangelicalhumanist]

Originally Posted by angeleyes

Yes, it's interesting that they know SO much, yet admit that that have no idea how it "works"! :-)

About as interesting as those who know that consciousness can exist with no brain to support it, and have even less idea how that might "work," except magic.

To me, it's kind of like gravity. We know that it works. We don't know precisely how it works, but there are some things that we most assuredly do know -- and the most important of those is that it depends on mass, and mass is a feature of matter. If there is no matter, there is no gravity, in spite of the fact that we don't know everything else about it.

And we do know something else, as well. The human brain is the most complex thing that we've ever discovered. It seems kind of odd, all that fantastic complexity, if it's actually not needed for anything that couldn't happen just as happily without it.

But let me ask just one other question, and it's something that I think makes the difference between how people come to such wildly different conclusions:

Here we have a large group of people, putting in hundreds of thousands of hours of hard, empirical study, using every scientific tool available to them. On the other side, we have people who are thinking about stuff and deciding, based on a few personal experiences, what is true of the universe.

Why is that second group so much more believable than the first? Is it because they've come up with an answer that we like better?