There is no God

[Underseer]

Specific claims about specific gods are falsifiable.

What does an unspecific god look like? And why would vague gods have more truthiness than specific gods? Are not all gods falsifiable because they are human inventions?

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It's not that vague claims are more true, it's that more specific claims are more falsifiable.

For instance, if I say "bigfoot exists," my claim is completely non-falsifiable even if bigfoot does not in fact exist. However, if you and I are standing in the same room and I make the claim "bigfoot exists and one is standing right next to me," then the claim is falsifiable and you can subject my claim to a test simply by looking to either side of me.

Put another way, Mormonism is more falsifiable than regular Christianity, not because regular Christianity has more "truthiness" as you put it, but because Mormonism simply makes more claims. It's all the nutty claims of Christianity, plus a bunch more new claims piled on top of that. More claims = more opportunities for falsification.

 

[Kharakov]

For instance, if I say "bigfoot exists," my claim is completely non-falsifiable even if bigfoot does not in fact exist. However, if you and I are standing in the same room and I make the claim "bigfoot exists and one is standing right next to me," then the claim is falsifiable and you can subject my claim to a test simply by looking to either side of me.

Everyone knows that Bigfoot has the ability of psychic camouflage- BF can create the impression that BF is not there, even if you look right at'em.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

For me, it is better to believe in something than to believe in nothing.

Why? Are you going to go postal if you don't?

 

[Kharakov]

For me, it is better to believe in something than to believe in nothing.

Why? Are you going to go postal if you don't?

Obviously not, because then they'd have said "For you, it is better for me to believe in something than for me to believe in nothing."

Ohh, and the big thing is... it is better for God to believe in many, than to believe only in Nne.

 

[blastula]

Very deepity.

 

[MxM111]

First post here in this forum. Natural religion, the attempt to prove God exists, has been a notable failure since Plato essentially invented it in his "Laws - Book X". The burden of proof still lies on theism in light of this failure.

God is the universe. And I am sure it exists. It also satifies lots of attributes typically associated with the word god, omni-present, creator of all, etc. See what I did?

Until there is clear definition of what god is and is not, you can not answer this question. And there is no agreed definition of what god is. Hence your statement is meaningless.

And yes, I am agnostic.

 

[The Helmetmaker]

Do I believe in an anthropomorphic god?
No.
Do I accept the god concept?
No.
Do I go to church?
Every Sunday. I have been a Unitarian Univeralist since 2004.
Am I a suprenaturalist?
Don't see the need to be. Natural nature appears pretty damn super to me.
Have I ever had a religious experience?
Often.
Was the experience real?
Always.
Do I attribute it to something supernatiral outside myself?
No.
Do I listen to gospel music and does it move me?
Yes but not contemporary gospel, which I find to be pabulum, but give me some Golden Gates, some Fairfeild Four, Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, Albertina Walker, and of course, Mahalia Jackson, I will not only be moved, I will cry, shout, and dance.
I don't pray to a deity, but I do pray over things, stilling the din of distraction so that my mind concentrates on the problem and works through a solution. I do deep reading and repetitive recitation, much like a rosary, but instead of entreating the Virgin, I would use a poem or paragraph that sang to me.
I take as a matter of devotion James Luthor Adams' Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion and try everyday to realize them in my life.
I endulge in collective joy and celebration.
I love my neighbor as myself though I am not immune to anger nor do I wish to be.
I am human for that is how my parents made me but I am reverent of the holy and disgusted by the sinful. The holy is that which heals and binds us one to other and from which come loves. The sinful is that which destroys us and condemns us to detachment from other humans and our own humanity.
It is that humanity that is what we call imprecisely soul.

Very nice. Don't forget Iris Dement.

 

[PasJJackson]

For years the so called scientist and atheists have be questioning the existence of God and pushing forward the so called scientific evidence to defeat the sentimental believers whereas believer forced their sentimental thoughts to be accepted by everyone. Well, both sides are to be challenged by any sane man as both arguments are based on mental speculations. God is not to be understood by sentimentalists and speculators nor can He be understood through experiments. We all have imperfect senses but still we believe that the instruments such as telescopes, microscopes and so on that are built by such imperfect senses are able to give us perfect understanding. Nor our minds are able to understand the unlimited Supreme. A sane man cannot consider any argument presented by a so called scientist, atheist or religious sentimentalist as bona fide for all of them fail to use one thing, “intelligence”. Actually religion is the real science and sentimentalism is not to be consider religious. Existence of God based on beliefs shouldn’t be accepted by any human being. Both sentimentalism and atheism cannot affect the existence of God as the sun is never affected by clouds. If we can engage our intelligence for a second the existence of the Supreme will become the absolute truth. Religion means science of knowing and loving God. We have to know God otherwise how can we love Him? An example of use of intelligence is, A child may look at an automobile and wonder how does such a thing move without being pulled by a horse or any animal? but a sane man understands the mechanical engineering in an automobile and he knows that behind the engine, the is an intelligent controller. Nothing in existence can act without a controller. It is childish not to consider the controller as it is insane to deny the existence of a source of anything. So how can we have intelligence, fame, strength, wealth, beauty, renunciation and so on if these qualities are not there in our source? A question may arise that if everything has a source then where does God come from? First one should understand the superiority of spirit over matter. Even though all element that are in a live body are there in a dead body, because of the absence of a spirit soul a dead body cannot behave like a live body. In the material realm time influences everything whereas in the spiritual realm time does not exist. So there cannot be a question of beginning and end nor creation and destruction in the spiritual realm. God is the Supreme whole, the original person; that we can understand because everything in existence has a personality. So if everything has a personality how can the source of everything not have a personality? We create things like satellites and let them float in the sky because this potency is there in the source, He creates things like planets and make them float in the sky. Whatever we do, we do in minute quantity but He does unlimitedly. He is unlimited that’s why He can supply His potencies unlimitedly. The philosophy that we are all gods is also misleading since a drop of an ocean cannot claim to be an ocean. Though all the qualities in an ocean are there in a drop. A finger in a hand cannot claim to be a human being. God Has all qualities unlimitedly and we have the same qualities in minute quantities. No combination of matter can create consciousness but spirit soul bring consciousness to matter. I am interested in knowing how does a human being who is given such high intelligence over all living entities ends up concluding that everything has no source and an explosion created all this and matter came life? And how is such a great living being convinced that he is just a lump of flesh?

 

[Keith&Co.]

For years the so called scientist and atheists

And right there, I assume I'm not going to accept just about any of the rest of this post. But thanks for playing. Welcome to Freethought!

 

[bilby]

For years the so called scientist and atheists

And right there, I assume I'm not going to accept just about any of the rest of this post. But thanks for playing. Welcome to Freethought!

I agree.

I might have been tempted to read beyond that inauspicious opening, had there been any paragraph breaks to suggest that what followed was not going to be an unreadable stream-of-consciousness screed. But there weren't.

So I didn't.

 

[gmbteach]

For me, it is better to believe in something than to believe in nothing.

You can still believe in stuff.

I believe the earth will continue to turn and therefore daylight will return in about 7 1/2 hours from now (given that it is currently 10:30 pm in Brisvegas).

It is about the only thing I am 100% certain of. Anything else I believe in is open to a number of factors. I could say I believe I will wake up tomorrow. Given that I am now 50 years old, this is most probably going to happen, but it's not a 100% certainty.

I choose to believe in things that are tangible and can be proven.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I might have been tempted to read beyond that inauspicious opening, had there been any paragraph breaks to suggest that what followed was not going to be an unreadable stream-of-consciousness screed. But there weren't.

So I didn't.

I gave it a touch more of my attention. I regret that.

We all have imperfect senses but still we believe that the instruments such as telescopes, microscopes and so on that are built by such imperfect senses are able to give us perfect understanding.

This is just flat out false. I don't know anyone who understands the operation of a microscope that thinks it gives us perfect understanding of whatever we're looking at through it.

Part of my job involves training operators of the system that programs a SLBM's guidance system. We know the guidance system isn't perfect, that there are physical imperfections. We measure the imperfections (knowing that there is a limit to the accuracy by which we measure the imperfections) and correct for them. But what we keep telling the sailors is that no system is perfect, we just do lots of things to reduce the imperfections that we know and acknowledge are there. And we're just the engineers and engineer support staff.
The actual scientists that developed the theories our systems are based upon are much more aware of the limitations of their tools to measure and help them define the universe.

Maybe laymen think that scientists think that their tools and readings give them perfect measurements that fit perfectly into perfectly formed theories? But the scientists don't. And that's the atheist scientists AND the scientists who believe that one ore more gods were involved in creating the universe they're trying to understand.

So I have to say, what I've seen of this post, PasJ, does not fill me with confidence that you're equipped to tell me something I need to accept as a truth.

 

[Ovazor]

Well, both sides are to be challenged by any sane man as both arguments are based on mental speculations.

Whereas your arguments are based on what exactly?

God is not to be understood by sentimentalists and speculators nor can He be understood through experiments.

And how do you know this? And please, provide an answer that does not include any mental speculations you seem to discount.

We all have imperfect senses but still we believe that the instruments such as telescopes, microscopes and so on that are built by such imperfect senses are able to give us perfect understanding.

Who believes that? I have never encountered an atheist or scientist who claims to have perfect understanding. They are tools to enhance or enable observations, and thus lead to better understanding, but there is always room for improvement.

Also, if we cannot use mental speculations, nor observations, what can we use?

Nor our minds are able to understand the unlimited Supreme.

How do you know this. Again, no mental speculations, please.

A sane man cannot consider any argument presented by a so called scientist, atheist or religious sentimentalist as bona fide for all of them fail to use one thing, “intelligence”.

So, anybody not agreeing with you is neither sane nor intelligent?

Actually religion is the real science and sentimentalism is not to be consider religious.

Oh, and how do you know this?

Existence of God based on beliefs shouldn’t be accepted by any human being. Both sentimentalism and atheism cannot affect the existence of God as the sun is never affected by clouds.

The purpose of the arguments is to try to discover whether such being exist, no to affect the existence,

If we can engage our intelligence for a second the existence of the Supreme will become the absolute truth.

How do you know this. How if this not a mental speculation?

Religion means science of knowing and loving God. We have to know God otherwise how can we love Him?

How do you know this? Besides, does a deity have to actually exist in order somebody to love it? People do have imaginary friends...

Nothing in existence can act without a controller. It is childish not to consider the controller as it is insane to deny the existence of a source of anything.

Again, how do you know this? It's a quite a logical leap to argue that "an automobile needs controller, automobiles exist, therefore nothing in existence can act without controller".

A question may arise that if everything has a source then where does God come from?

Yes, unless you consider it to belong to the pesky category of mental speculations.

First one should understand the superiority of spirit over matter.

How do you know this? Reads like speculation to me.

Even though all element that are in a live body are there in a dead body, because of the absence of a spirit soul a dead body cannot behave like a live body.

How do you know there is a spirit soul in a live body? Even if one does admit that a live body must have a controller, would living brains be not enough?

In the material realm time influences everything whereas in the spiritual realm time does not exist.

And this is known by which means?

So there cannot be a question of beginning and end nor creation and destruction in the spiritual realm.

How do you know this to be true?

God is the Supreme whole, the original person; that we can understand because everything in existence has a personality.

Really? Does the chair I am sitting now have a personality? And how do you know this to be true?

Besides, how can something be "the original" if there is no time and thus no beginning in the spiritual realm?

So if everything has a personality how can the source of everything not have a personality?

How can there be a source for everything if "everything" includes something with no time and thus no beginning?

God Has all qualities unlimitedly

How do you know this?

No combination of matter can create consciousness but spirit soul bring consciousness to matter.

How do you know this?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

First post here in this forum. Natural religion, the attempt to prove God exists, has been a notable failure since Plato essentially invented it in his "Laws - Book X". The burden of proof still lies on theism in light of this failure.

God is the universe. And I am sure it exists. It also satifies lots of attributes typically associated with the word god, omni-present, creator of all, etc. See what I did?

Until there is clear definition of what god is and is not, you can not answer this question. And there is no agreed definition of what god is. Hence your statement is meaningless.

And yes, I am agnostic.

There are any number of broad definitions of God(s). But all suffer from serious problems.

Logically, this makes the very idea of any sort of God problematical. What's left is goal post moving and shifting definitions and special pleading to save appearances and God(s). To save God, God soon becomes such a vague notion, the games not worth playing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

God is the universe. And I am sure it exists. It also satifies lots of attributes typically associated with the word god, omni-present, creator of all, etc. See what I did?

Until there is clear definition of what god is and is not, you can not answer this question. And there is no agreed definition of what god is. Hence your statement is meaningless.

And yes, I am agnostic.

There are any number of broad definitions of God(s). But all suffer from serious problems.

Logically, this makes the very idea of any sort of God problematical. What's left is goal post moving and shifting definitions and special pleading to save appearances and God(s). To save God, God soon becomes such a vague notion, the games not worth playing.

Universe, Multiverse, Cosmos, etc., all these words must mean "god" to some people. That means we're all gods. Cool. But that doesn't give me any more knowledge than I already had.

So "god" is just a label on things that already exist.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So "god" is just a label on things that already exist.

Kinda like those job promotions where you have the same job and the same pay and the same desk, but instead of Specialist, you become SENIOR Specialist.

Same universe as yesterday, but now it's the GOD universe.

 

[abaddon]

God is the universe. And I am sure it exists. It also satifies lots of attributes typically associated with the word god, omni-present, creator of all, etc. See what I did?

Until there is clear definition of what god is and is not, you can not answer this question. And there is no agreed definition of what god is. Hence your statement is meaningless.

And yes, I am agnostic.

There are any number of broad definitions of God(s). But all suffer from serious problems.

Logically, this makes the very idea of any sort of God problematical. What's left is goal post moving and shifting definitions and special pleading to save appearances and God(s). To save God, God soon becomes such a vague notion, the games not worth playing.

Is "God is the universe" considered "broad" because it doesn't narrow the word "God" down to something distinct to itself? There was no where else to put the word "God" so it got slapped onto the universe?

But maybe it's not intended as just a simple equivalence, but to describe something perceived about the universe. Maybe on the occasions some pantheists present this apparent equivalence of 'just labels', they do it as much to describe the universe as to describe God. And for the pantheist, it'd do both at one and the same time. A pantheist, if he values the word "God" at all and says this, is attempting to convey he perceives the physical universe as the most divine, sacred, numinous, deserving-of-adoration revelation of ultimate reality.

This is more than just a 'factoid' type of knowledge but life-informing knowledge. What science finds about nature is knowledge, and that supplies the details about "God" (so... this God is not all that vague). But it's not the full description. The human response is a facet of nature too (though weirdly, and maybe a bit schizoid-ish, it is often treated as negligible) and for those with religious sensibilities, religious terms will be the most descriptive of this response. So "the Universe is God" is an attempt to describe nature with the response included, for those who define God as whatever is the ultimate reality or the most supreme of beings (though in this case the "being" is nothing like a human person).

 

[Juma]

But maybe it's not intended as just a simple equivalence, but to describe something perceived about the universe. Maybe on the occasions some pantheists present this apparent equivalence of 'just labels', they do it as much to describe the universe as to describe God. And for the pantheist, it'd do both at one and the same time. A pantheist, if he values the word "God" at all and says this, is attempting to convey he perceives the physical universe as the most divine, sacred, numinous, deserving-of-adoration revelation of ultimate reality.

And then it is not a statement about the universe but about his feelings about the universe.

This is more than just a 'factoid' type of knowledge but life-informing knowledge. What science finds about nature is knowledge, and that supplies the details about "God" (so... this God is not all that vague). But it's not the full description. The human response is a facet of nature too (though weirdly, and maybe a bit schizoid-ish, it is often treated as negligible) and for those with religious sensibilities, religious terms will be the most descriptive of this response. So "the Universe is God" is an attempt to describe nature with the response included, for those who define God as whatever is the ultimate reality or the most supreme of beings (though in this case the "being" is nothing like a human person).

This is just because you conflate the effort of understanding the universe and the effort to talk about your feelings for the universe.

The "human response" is really negligible when discussing how the universe work. What som catholic clerks believe about the communion has no relevance for how poisonous DDT are to mice etc.

It is negligible to all sciences except for those that examines how the human psyche and social behavior works.

 

[abaddon]

And then it is not a statement about the universe but about his feelings about the universe.

This is more than just a 'factoid' type of knowledge but life-informing knowledge. What science finds about nature is knowledge, and that supplies the details about "God" (so... this God is not all that vague). But it's not the full description. The human response is a facet of nature too (though weirdly, and maybe a bit schizoid-ish, it is often treated as negligible) and for those with religious sensibilities, religious terms will be the most descriptive of this response. So "the Universe is God" is an attempt to describe nature with the response included, for those who define God as whatever is the ultimate reality or the most supreme of beings (though in this case the "being" is nothing like a human person).

This is just because you conflate the effort of understanding the universe and the effort to talk about your feelings for the universe.

It's not a conflation, it's a completer picture for those persons to whom it's meaningful. It's not getting absurdly reductive to where only certain eggheads get to describe anything in nature. Not just overly reductive but dualist even, treating subjectivity as somehow less than real.

It is negligible to all sciences except for those that examines how the human psyche and social behavior works.

So?

 

[Juma]

It's not a conflation, it's a completer picture for those persons to whom it's meaningful. It's not getting absurdly reductive to where only certain eggheads get to describe anything in nature. Not just overly reductive but dualist even, treating subjectivity as somehow less than real.

Eh. Subjectivity, as a mental content, is of course real. That doesnt mean that specific content, as gods, has any real counterpart.