Posts by Qcmbr

257

Prove to me that God exists

by CinemaBlend in

i need debate practice on the subject for the next time i'm cornered.

Tertapod - normally I think your answers are at least logical to me but I was stumped by a couple points:

1/ Why would people commiting crimes in my name allow you to know where I was or even that 'I am'?

2/ Why does me letting you know I exist make me an atheist? I lurked here before I proved my existence to you all... in both cases I believed in God..

My point about the onus is on God to prove Himself is because the proofs required to prove a conscious entity( that has influence) cannot be on the conscious entity who receives confirmation - they can only report the event / evidence. In my case I know God lives - I prayed and received an answer that is absolute but I can only report that to you as opposed to making you experience it. If what I said was in fact true then you could have the same experience IF God let you (ie the onus is on Him - and you actually - as the believer I drop out the picture..)

My point about the ant farm was simple - we put the glass together - chose the ants - feed them etc.. it was just the simple idea of how a superior intelligence could influence another intelligence no more. Technically we could bio engineer the ants and build a new species, we could (hypothetically) give them enough intelligence to communicate ideas about us I suppose if we wanted to take the analogy too far..

Actually the point about the pink unicorn is interesting - it takes a tremendous amount of maturity and self discipline to not reject other peoples 'truth' I'm always intrigued by the idea that just because everyone sees things one way they aren't another (I like the matrix for that reason!). I appreciate that the pink unicorn is a bit of a strawman to make it easy to knock down but if people started to say that a 'PU' had appeared to them and given them info you'd be churlish to reject it immediately just because the last time you saw a PU you where watching an episode of My Little Pony. That's where I think maturity comes in to respect other peoples right to experience things that might be outside your worldview (the 'you' I am referring to is any reader not you Tetrapod:) - case in point with the milky hindu god episode. Let me make clear though that I'm not suggesting that we should all run helter skelter after things just because someone somewhere said so..that's the flip side to maturity - wisdom IMHO.

257

Prove to me that God exists

by CinemaBlend in

i need debate practice on the subject for the next time i'm cornered.

Qcmbr

Tertapod - normally I think your answers are at least logical to me but I was stumped by a couple points:

54

I'm telling lies from the stage

by DannyBloem in

i recently gave a public talk, and i really felt bad about it.. it was the public talk about the great flood of noahs days.

the is so much evidence that this great deluge never happened, but that is something you can't tell the audience from the stage.

(i will tell about that evidence if people are interested, but it is a bit off-topic now).

Qcmbr

Hi - my thoughts would be that you shouldn't lie to a congregation (or anyone - hmm that's probably a discussion all on its own) but you also shouldn't tell your version of the truth in that particular forum. I once had dreams of heading into other religion's churches and facing them down with my truth. Though it might have made for a really cool spectacle it would have been wrong and I am so grateful to this day I didn't make an utter fool of myself and didn't treat other people's feelings and beliefs as less worthy than mine. I think there is a place in society for 'resistance' to wrong doing - I even have a grudging admiration for people who hold up hunts, climb on buildings to protest something etc.. - but there must be some respect and appropriate timing.

By all means refuse to give talks but don't act like a martyr either and put your head on the chopping block by saying 'I don't believe x so the rest must be wrong.' I'd advise to avoid conflict (yea that is funny coming from me and my post history!) and always be true to yourself.

26

What books have made you cry?

by Fe2O3Girl in

jw
friends

bonus points if you don't mention wt publications!!

the first book that ever made me cry was the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck.

most recently, i was reduced to a blubbering wreck reading the five people you meet in heaven by mitch albom.

Qcmbr

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

257

Prove to me that God exists

by CinemaBlend in

i need debate practice on the subject for the next time i'm cornered.

Qcmbr

Hmm I have to take task with one of the premises of this arguement.. that God is testable in a scientific way. You see aethiests hold the cards in this aspect because If God exists He/She etc.. is presumably self aware and is potentially everywhere, nowhere , in a single location in alimited body etc.. etc.. depending on which religion's God you are looking to prove. The tools to prove a self aware being don't exist (just the same way you couldn't scientifically prove I exist if you didn't know where I lived or what I looked like.)Also assuming the premise that their is a god it must be a god who is interested in us (otherwise they would lose the tag of god...well they would for me - unless we are broadening our definition of God to anything smarter than us in the universe..)

The onus on proving whether God lives or not is on God not man to prove (ie if I want to let you know I exist its my job to do so as opposed to you looking for me in the off chance that you'll strike lucky and you'll be happy with what you find - not likely in my case unless you like specky brits:)

Now if God lives then would he want to prove himself to us? (If you have an ant farm do you feel an overwhelming urge to make contact??- would they even understand if you did??) We could suggest that if He did want to prove himself then we must be important to Him (ie we are not a simple ant farm.) If we are important to God we must have some relationship to Him (even if that is only a friend / benevolent dictator / dire overlord / child / ok! ant farm ..)

If we have a relationship with someone each partner in the relationship carries some 'part'(can't think of a better word) of the other person in them (for example - a memory, dna, a current engineered situation, etc..) therefore to find God we could start by first 'finding' ourselves (if God finds us we cannot say we found him by definition)so the sincere seeker for proof of a God(who has a relationship with man) could first find himself.

How do you find yourself since you are you and its hard for a construct to deconstruct itself? This is maybe where we are trapped by the need for an external mirror to show us ourselves and which mirror do you trust. The first adventure is, can we prove that we ourselves exist? I would make one given suggestion here (brain getting lazy) - when I mean do we exist I mean more than as a simple lump of electrical meat - does our conscience exist (if it doesn't then we cannot prove God exists since we - as a conscious entity - don't. With the exception of a few thinkers I would suggest we can all take as a given that we do have a consciousness. Only a consciousness would recognise a relationship with another consciousness...I think..?)

What within us then would provide evidence of that one to one relationship with God that would prove Him to ourselves?

a) A direct memory - a shared experience (this would be up to the individual to ratify and trust.) Not a proof for anyone except someone who believes the person. This is enough proof for many people (ie scriptures are recods of this nature, visions, voices in the night etc...)
b) Part of our discernable structure could be 'fingerprinted' by God. Some see evidence of design in life. Christian thinking makes us in God's image. There are some religions (mentioning no usual suspects) that take that relationship to an nth degree and say we are gods offspring. If we took a long view , our sum of knowledge is increasing and we are destined to become gods by some definitions anyway (if you could travel back in time and take your current tech many would end up worshipping you even now since you can fly, talk across thousands of miles, transmit images the same distance etc..) So this is a circular proof that at least god is possible and that we may be gods. As for a barcode on life that has yet to be found - we haven't found a 'made in heaven' tag.
c) A miraculous occurence that altered our environment. Some see this is the order of the universe, some have evidence from their own life that they would take as proof (a personal miracle that was sufficiently in contravention of the laws of physics / coincidence to convince them.)

My summation:

1/ So to prove (the)God(we are looking for) ourselves is currently looking scientifically impossible unless God leaves fingerprints that are findable and testable or could Himself be constrained in a testable experiment - not likely knowing our hypothesis of who God is.
2/ If God is interested in us we must be in a relationship with Him. This relationship would need to be defined.
3/ God must exist as a conscious entity for this relationship to exist.
3/ We must exist as a conscious entity for this relationship to exist.
4/ Proof is therefore only possible on a one to one basis. Even seeing a mass demonstration could be dismissed as mass hallucination / camera tricks etc..
5/ Until you have tried the path of one who has a belief in God you are not in a position to deny what they claim about God ( if I say a particular mountain view is xy or z only a personal trip up the mountain can confirm it and then only for you.)