Morning folks.
Certainly, the idea of god was not exclusive to the bronze age anyone. I think that was part of my point. Seeking the spiritual, a god/goddess/creator/spirit (s)... has been part of us since the beginning of us, as far as we know of ancient civilizations. I am not suggesting that at the point of Abraham or the Israelites, this was the only time God presented Himself as He truly is. Or even the first time. But people are limited. Generation to generation forget. People spread out, they bring original truths with them, even though those change as people forget and do other things.
I think people have to be willing and able to accept Him. There are universal truths among various religions, newer or ancient. I believe those came from Him.
As for the Hindu version of heaven, or the buddhist nirvana, these are variations of one thing - the spiritual. The details might be different, based on different understandings, but it is still spiritual. And yes, I am saying that if the 'supernatural' (spiritual is a better word imo, because I believe the spiritual is natural, just natural we have not discovered through scientific means yet) did not exist, we could not have thought of it. Not if we are purely natural (or physical) creatures. Which it would seem that we are not.
It seems I've made a mistake in labelling your faith. As gladiator said you're like a patchwork quilt of everything sewn together. I feel like its going to be difficult to tie you down on anything here, tec >_>.
Anyway, you say here that God might have revealed himself to earlier peoples, which unfortunately is unprovable. There are no sacred writings handed down from those times - if any even exist today - that would be beneficial to anyone. Even if there were it doesn't prove a thing, but I'll get to that in a minute. It also makes one wonder why God still chose to wait those 90,000 years before he decided to send a redeemer. Here you say people bring original truths . . . is that to say they make truth? So truth isn't constant, it changes? Maybe truth changes according to the time period and the society, as we know it does? That doesn't sound universal, or timeless.
You're making an illogical assumption as well, by saying something along the lines of:
• Humans are capable of doing good, saying moral things and applying moral principles
• God gave humans these moral truths
• Therefore God exists
You jump to the conclusion God supplies our truth, yet why go so far? Why not take one step back and say that humans are responsible for their own truth?
Yes, ideas of heaven vary. What I was saying is that some of them are still wrong. ie. someone sat down, thought up something new about what heaven could be like and went round telling everyone about it. Just like your idea of heaven would be wrong to a Hindu. Another example would be PURGATORY - which the Catholic church now admits never existed. So Purgatory was a spiritual plane that someone made up. In their head. A purely natural creature imagined a supernatural world. Are you suggesting that person had God's help in it?
If I were to ask you what heaven is like, you couldn't give me an in-depth answer. Why? Because you don't know. What you would probably say is something relating to your feelings - happiness, bliss, contentment. What does this mean? Your concept of heaven is entirely solipsistic. Christians go to heaven to live in eternal happiness, Muslims go to 72 virgins. Doesn't that bespeak its human origins? There's no view of heaven that isn't grounded purely on human emotion and experience.
I do not ascribe to these arguments to establish the truth of God. I also do not think these are a likely cause - on their own - of the first people leaping to a 'goddidit' response. Perhaps enough to get people seeking... but only because such a thing as the spiritual exists.
Really if you take away your personal experience, what are you left with? 'Nothing cannot create something' - you said it yourself. In other words, 'things need a cause, yet that cause itself must be uncaused, hence the uncaused cause is God'.
I would refer you to my confusion over the comments of Physicist Laurence Krauss, above. Many, many questions, yes.
I mentioned how I personally know though... I heard it from my Lord.
As for the bolded part, God is timeless. No beginning, no end = timeless. Hard to wrap our minds around that, since everything we know right now (even that sentence) has a beginning, middle, and end.
The statement is simple enough - Nothing, in the truest sense of the word, does not exist. Go to any corner of the universe and you find something, even in the parts where there would seem to be nothing.
And look, it's easy to say things like 'God is eternal', but it's harder to prove them. And as I said before, why not take a step back and say 'the universe is eternal'? It's quite possible our universe works on a cycle of Big Bangs and Big Crunches that follow into each other. Does that require a celestial handyman to tinker with it every now and then? To me it seems like the universe does a pretty good job of running itself.
Perhaps the 'conditions' are also timeless then, you might say? If so, what a concept for some spiritual leaders to grasp all on their own with no testable evidence! Perhaps they knew something of what they were talking about after all ;) Or perhaps they were listening to the same source. What are we doing wrong that we are just barely beginning to test and perhaps prove a concept that these men understood all along?
I'm unsure of what you mean here, so please get back to me. I'd also like to hear your evidence of scientific accuracy found within these religious texts. Someone brought the question up before and you disagreed with them.
