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I have no need to put God in a human box. A being who exists outside what we normally perceive as reality can't be defined or limited by our concepts of gender or even time.

But surely God is a being of some sort and capable of making choices?

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I believe that God loves us but does not control our actions, so of course there will be unfairness. What matters is that God's loving presence can strengthen us and bring good from horrible situations if we allow it.

1. You contradict yourself with your next point that you have experienced God yourself. This has clearly influenced your life, therefore God does have a degree of control.

2. It seems to me that a neutral observer would see the idea of a God as your minds easiest way of trying to cope with horrible situations. That you have a need to feel that the suffering was not in vain in order to move on, and that a "loving presence" is the minds invention.

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Why do I believe this? Because I have experienced it. I have experienced the presence of a reality greater than this reality. I have been challenged and comforted and led by it.

How do you know you experienced something outside of your own mind? How do you know your mind didn't make it up as part of its survival instinct? I don't wish to be demeaning, but the only evidence religious people can offer is their own personal visitations - and again using the neutral observer being visited by a spirit from another reality sounds like crazy-talk.

IMO this is like the people who have "experiences" of being abducted by aliens. The idea has become part of the public consciousness and in certain people will manifest itself as experiences. But it is not genuine, it is based on information that was already in the mind.

I believe that an experience such as this is the manifestation of minds that are receptive to the religious ideas that have been absorbed throughout their life.

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What is God's nature? Love. What is God's motivation? Love, which overflows into creative action. How did the universe begin? Natural processes (big bang, evolution). Why did it begin? God's love.

This simply makes no sense with the world around us. It's a dog eat dog world which is clearly traced back to our primitive roots as competitive animals. There is no evidence that this natural, scientific process has been influenced by a loving presense.

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Prayer aligns us with God's love, which is with all individuals and indeed with all of creation. Everyone bears the inner spark of the image of God. So it's not a matter of God "monitoring" each person, any more than you "monitor" your hands or feet. God is greater than us, outside us, but is also woven through us.

Where did you gain this understanding? Aren't you just following something you read which you like because it gives you comfort?

This questioning may sound harsh but you have to understand that for a neutral observer what you are saying sounds as crazy and deluded as someone saying that balrogs really exist. I just cannot see where science fails to explain the world to the point that a divine being is needed.

halplm wrote:

God doesn't want bad things to happen to people, but that doesn't mean he won't allow them to happen.

If God fixed everything to be perfect, then we lose any ability to make our own choices, and become mindless. He could have created that, but apparently that possability had little value to him. He wanted people to think for themselves, and in order for that to be possible, they have to be able to make bad choices, no matter how much we hate to see it, and the results.

So what is God's criteria for intervening and helping someone? If it's all about having a balance, why does your loving God allow some people to experience only pain and suffering in their life? And what does sickness and disease have to do with human choices?

I did say I was going to be incoherent...

Iavas_Saar wrote:

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I have no need to put God in a human box. A being who exists outside what we normally perceive as reality can't be defined or limited by our concepts of gender or even time.

But surely God is a being of some sort and capable of making choices?

Yes, I agree with both those statements, as long as "a being" means a being beyond our full understanding.

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I believe that God loves us but does not control our actions, so of course there will be unfairness. What matters is that God's loving presence can strengthen us and bring good from horrible situations if we allow it.

1. You contradict yourself with your next point that you have experienced God yourself. This has clearly influenced your life, therefore God does have a degree of control.

Where's the contradiction? God is present in every life. I am more aware of it than some people, in part because of how I am wired, in part because of my exposure to religion. My awareness does not prove or disprove either God's existence or God's control.

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2. It seems to me that a neutral observer would see the idea of a God as your minds easiest way of trying to cope with horrible situations. That you have a need to feel that the suffering was not in vain in order to move on, and that a "loving presence" is the minds invention.

If my awareness of God's presence came only during or after a time of suffering, that argument might have merit. But I felt it long before that. I felt it before I had words to describe it.

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How do you know you experienced something outside of your own mind? How do you know your mind didn't make it up as part of its survival instinct? I don't wish to be demeaning, but the only evidence religious people can offer is their own personal visitations - and again using the neutral observer being visited by a spirit from another reality sounds like crazy-talk.

I can't prove to you what I experience. I can point you to the fact that many, many people of different cultures and religions throughout history have had similar experiences. To me, that indicates that there is a reality that can be perceived by those who seek it. It's not a "personal visitation ... by a spirit." It's not like reports of alien abduction. It is an inner knowing, an awareness. And how can you say that is not genuine?

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It's a dog eat dog world which is clearly traced back to our primitive roots as competitive animals. There is no evidence that this natural, scientific process has been influenced by a loving presense.

The world is what it is. But I do see the influence of a loving presence. This dog-eat-dog world has somehow given birth to incredible acts of love and compassion, acts that transcend selfish competition.

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Prayer aligns us with God's love, which is with all individuals and indeed with all of creation. Everyone bears the inner spark of the image of God. So it's not a matter of God "monitoring" each person, any more than you "monitor" your hands or feet. God is greater than us, outside us, but is also woven through us.

Where did you gain this understanding? Aren't you just following something you read which you like because it gives you comfort?

Yes, I have read a great deal about not only my religion but others. I weigh what I read against my experience of God. If what I read touches that same gut-level knowing, I trust its truth.

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This questioning may sound harsh but you have to understand that for a neutral observer what you are saying sounds as crazy and deluded as someone saying that balrogs really exist. I just cannot see where science fails to explain the world to the point that a divine being is needed.

Oh, certainly the world can be perceived in nothing but scientific terms. I have absolutely nothing against science. I just think there's more to reality. Why would you expect the creator of science to contradict it?

Yes, it sounds harsh to be told that I am crazy and deluded. I'm sure you would think it harsh if someone said the same of your insistence that there is no God. But I have seen the results of faith in my life and the lives of others. It is not a faith that I insist that others share. I do not judge those who do not believe. It would be good to have my own experiences given the same respect, though.

I don't believe reality is any more than one's perception of what is real.
And honestly what else do you really need?

I have seen and experienced the tangental results of faith.
What is more real than that? The actual existance of a being is really secondary to the faith.

I don't buy the reality is nothing more than perception claim. If that's true, where did mathematics come from?

Iavas_Saar wrote:

And what does sickness and disease have to do with human choices?

As with any disaster, sometimes nothing, sometimes everything. Sometimes shit just happens, sometimes it's the consequence of your decisions. It was the former case that ultimately drove me away from religion.

WampusCat wrote:

Iavas_Saar wrote:

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I believe that God loves us but does not control our actions, so of course there will be unfairness. What matters is that God's loving presence can strengthen us and bring good from horrible situations if we allow it.

1. You contradict yourself with your next point that you have experienced God yourself. This has clearly influenced your life, therefore God does have a degree of control.

Where's the contradiction? God is present in every life. I am more aware of it than some people, in part because of how I am wired, in part because of my exposure to religion. My awareness does not prove or disprove either God's existence or God's control.

Surely if you experience God in some way it can affect your actions. I am unsure whether you believe God has any power to physically affect this world or not? If not, it wouldn't matter if God was loving or not. But if God can affect the world, that power is used very unfairly.

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2. It seems to me that a neutral observer would see the idea of a God as your minds easiest way of trying to cope with horrible situations. That you have a need to feel that the suffering was not in vain in order to move on, and that a "loving presence" is the minds invention.

If my awareness of God's presence came only during or after a time of suffering, that argument might have merit. But I felt it long before that. I felt it before I had words to describe it.

It is not possible for you or anyone to have such a deep understanding of the complexity of the human mind to think you were genuinely experiencing the presense of a being from another reality. We are not intelligent enough to know the cause and effect of every electrical impulse in our brain.

I can't see that it was anything more than a guess based on what you had already absorbed from the culture you grew up in.

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How do you know you experienced something outside of your own mind? How do you know your mind didn't make it up as part of its survival instinct? I don't wish to be demeaning, but the only evidence religious people can offer is their own personal visitations - and again using the neutral observer being visited by a spirit from another reality sounds like crazy-talk.

I can't prove to you what I experience. I can point you to the fact that many, many people of different cultures and religions throughout history have had similar experiences. To me, that indicates that there is a reality that can be perceived by those who seek it. It's not a "personal visitation ... by a spirit." It's not like reports of alien abduction. It is an inner knowing, an awareness. And how can you say that is not genuine?

I can say it's almost certainly not genuine because it has a very simple, scientific explanation. Rather than having to imagine this super being in another reality that somehow interacts with our own, what happened to you can be traced back to the origins of humanity, when intelligence was much less developed and new methods of competition and survival were appearing. The idea of gods was a way for early societies to function and organise themselves to be successful. Over time that notion has simply perpetuated itself in different forms, mostly as a method of control. The manner of faith is such that as human awareness expanded, the faithful would not move on from this ancient notion. It was so engrained into general life that the human subconscious would often create sensations based on these notions. The recipient would then fit these sensations into a conditioned religious world view and claim to have had a divine experience.

Why would you not consider such a simple explanation? To claim an "inner knowing" is to claim complete mastery of the human brain. This is impossible.

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It's a dog eat dog world which is clearly traced back to our primitive roots as competitive animals. There is no evidence that this natural, scientific process has been influenced by a loving presense.

The world is what it is. But I do see the influence of a loving presence. This dog-eat-dog world has somehow given birth to incredible acts of love and compassion, acts that transcend selfish competition.

Again, the simpler explanation is that this is simply the result of our expanding awareness and of broadening our potential for having a fulfilling existence. In the primate world, time is taken to develop social bonds, to groom each other and to relax. We simply have more advanced ways of bonding and relaxing as you would expect from our larger brains. This is the inevitable result of increasing sentience. No fantastical being is needed to explain the good in our world.

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This questioning may sound harsh but you have to understand that for a neutral observer what you are saying sounds as crazy and deluded as someone saying that balrogs really exist. I just cannot see where science fails to explain the world to the point that a divine being is needed.

Oh, certainly the world can be perceived in nothing but scientific terms. I have absolutely nothing against science. I just think there's more to reality. Why would you expect the creator of science to contradict it?

If you think that a "gut-level knowing" is enough to believe in something, then that DOES contradict science which explains the gathering of knowledge through the 5 human senses.

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Yes, it sounds harsh to be told that I am crazy and deluded. I'm sure you would think it harsh if someone said the same of your insistence that there is no God. But I have seen the results of faith in my life and the lives of others. It is not a faith that I insist that others share. I do not judge those who do not believe. It would be good to have my own experiences given the same respect, though.

Actually, I said that a neutral observer would think it was crazy. I know you and I don't think you're a crazy person, even if I think these particular views are completely illogical.

I am confident enough in the logic of my beliefs that someone calling me crazy would mostly amuse me.

You say you've seen the results of faith in your life - this I believe, but it's the results of the faith itself, not proof that having that faith was based on anything truthful. I am glad if having this faith has positively affected your life, but again, that does not prove anything other than you finding a mental state that benefited your existence.

I am not judging you as a person, infact I can tell you're a much nicer person than I am.

My views are only illogical if you assume that the five senses can tell us everything there is to know about the universe. I respectfully disagree.

Yes, I believe that God interacts with us but not like a puppetmaster holding the strings. It is not control and manipulation but courtship. An invitation to intimacy. Religion (any religion) gives us language to describe the experience and a story/myth that we can enter to experience it more fully.

It is possible to live without that added dimension to life. Many people do. Blind people live full, happy and productive lives as well, but they do not see the stars. Stars exist.

As for unfairness: I do not expect God to fix everything. I do trust God to be with us in the broken mess.

I totally agree with you, Wampus. I haven't had time to enter this discussion, and I'm not sure when I will. But I wanted you to know you're not on here alone.


Lali

That's good to know, Lali! Thanks.

I don't think anyone (including Iavas) would claim that our senses can tell us everything about the universe; just that if something is completely invisible to them, we can't know anything about it, period. In these kinds of discussions, people often start by saying that God is totally beyond human comprehension, but then immediately follow up by saying that he is wise, loving, etc. If something is entirely beyond human comprehension, then by definition humans can't know anything about it. If something is within (even partially within) human comprehension, then humans can reason about it and dismiss it if said reasoning shows contradictions.

Wampus wrote:

My views are only illogical if you assume that the five senses can tell us everything there is to know about the universe. I respectfully disagree.

I've had ample experience with chi energy flow, which cannot be measured by instrumentation. Those who wish to believe only the evidence of their external senses are blinding themselves to a whole 'nother spectrum of experience. I know. I was there. I was raised an atheist and stayed that way for 30+ years. I gradually relaxed to agnosticism, and when I finally understood that various mystical things could be real, it was like going from a black and white life to full color. Troubling data that did not fit my former world view makes more sense, now, and the whole world is much more kewl!

Scoff at "faith" if you want, Iavas, but some of us know there is more out there than the mere physical, regardless of whatever brand of religion we follow.

Wampus wrote:

Religion (any religion) gives us language to describe the experience and a story/myth that we can enter to experience it more fully.

Being raised an atheist, I cannot accept the story/myths that are already out there, but I have devised a story of my own that feels right to me, couched in modern terms, sprinkled with ancient concepts- according to what feels right to me considering the experiences I've had. Science cannot explain too much of what has happened in my life, so I have to seek understanding in mystical terms for some of it.

edit: left out a word

I would not say that God is utterly incomprehensible, just that God is more than human comprehension can pin down. We see in part now, and that part is often distorted by our own biases, fears and desires. That's why religion is so often twisted into something terrible.

But that doesn't mean God isn't real or cannot be glimpsed. And that glimpse can be transformative.

Dave_LF wrote:

I don't think anyone (including Iavas) would claim that our senses can tell us everything about the universe; just that if something is completely invisible to them, we can't know anything about it, period. In these kinds of discussions, people often start by saying that God is totally beyond human comprehension, but then immediately follow up by saying that he is wise, loving, etc. If something is entirely beyond human comprehension, then by definition humans can't know anything about it. If something is within (even partially within) human comprehension, then humans can reason about it and dismiss it if said reasoning shows contradictions.

Yes, but there are all sorts of things that are not observable through our five senses, that are totally invisible to us, that we can still comprehend and know about (subjectively anyway, if not objectively). Art, philosophy, morality, human emotions, these are things that science can only grasp at haltingly. To fully comprehend and engage these concepts we need something beyond science and beyond our mere observations. Religion can be an effective way of examining these things, although it may not be the only way, but to dismiss religious belief as crazy because it does not rely on the scientific method, or does not conform to scientific principles, is to completely miss Wampus’s point: that some things are beyond the scope of science.

tinwë wrote:

Yes, but there are all sorts of things that are not observable through our five senses, that are totally invisible to us, that we can still comprehend and know about (subjectively anyway, if not objectively). Art, philosophy, morality, human emotions, these are things that science can only grasp at haltingly.

But these aren't "things"; they're concepts or abstractions. God is usually pitched as being a real thing in the real world, which is the legitimate domain of reason and the senses. A god that is described as an embodiment of human ideals or somesuch would be a different matter.

My justification for faith comes from a weird scientific point, that is.....water on this planet and the planet being exactly where it needs to be for life to be here, and the right combination of gases for air. I really can't grasp how it all can just be happenstance that either the rocks produced gasses to make water or that an ice covered astriod struck earth and melted. And all this just happened on a planet exactly the right distance from the sun.....And then.....there was enough of the gasses to make life giving air.

That it could be happening to some other planets where other beings think about the same things.

And the order that is in the universe itself...It's hard to believe that there is not some sort of higher intelligence out there and just say well it just happened.

Of course I also believe in the The Four Noble Truths:

1. Life means suffering.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

4. There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

Ara-anna wrote:

My justification for faith comes from a weird scientific point, that is.....water on this planet and the planet being exactly where it needs to be for life to be here, and the right combination of gases for air. I really can't grasp how it all can just be happenstance that either the rocks produced gasses to make water or that an ice covered astriod struck earth and melted. And all this just happened on a planet exactly the right distance from the sun.....And then.....there was enough of the gasses to make life giving air.

There are three things I can think to say to this; one is any thinking being will necessarily discover that it exists in an environment well-suited to its development and survival. If that weren't the case, it wouldn't be there to think about it. The second is that there's something not quite right about evaluating probabilities after the fact. In a rainforest, some trees produce millions of seeds every year. Over the tree's lifetime, maybe one of those seeds is lucky enough to wind up in a spot where an older tree has recently fallen over and left a patch of sunlight, and even then there's little chance that it will be healthy and lucky enough to beat out all the other seeds competing to grow in the same spot. The probability of any specific seed reaching maturity is vanishingly small, but that doesn't mean the ones who manage it have been shown divine favor. Also, anywhere there's a hole in the canopy, the probability that *some* seed will manage to grow up there is approximately 1. Everything's improbable, but something's got to happen (why the latter half of that statement should be true is the real mystery, in my mind). Finally, is it really the case that the environment is adapted to the needs of organisms, or are the needs of organisms adapted to the environment? We don't really have any idea how common or varied life is. There don't appear to be any other obvious examples in our immediate vicinity, but that's really a very small sample. And, frankly, the environment isn't *that* great for us; it's just less hostile than other places. If we struggle constantly we can hope to keep ahead of it for a handful of decades, but it takes us all out sooner or later, and eventually it will get the biosphere as a whole.

Dave_LF wrote:

tinwë wrote:

Yes, but there are all sorts of things that are not observable through our five senses, that are totally invisible to us, that we can still comprehend and know about (subjectively anyway, if not objectively). Art, philosophy, morality, human emotions, these are things that science can only grasp at haltingly.

But these aren't "things"; they're concepts or abstractions. God is usually pitched as being a real thing in the real world, which is the legitimate domain of reason and the senses. A god that is described as an embodiment of human ideals or somesuch would be a different matter.

I think this is what people are trying to address when they say that god is beyond our comprehension. After all, “supernatural” means “above nature”, something that transcends “real” and therefore transcends reason and the senses (although I think most religious adherents would take issue at referring to their god as a “supernatural” being).

But this is all beside the point for me. I find no more use in trying to discuss religious issues in scientific terms than I do in trying to discuss scientific issues in religious terms. The two things simply have nothing to do with each other, imo.

You can't unscrew the inscrutable with a screwdriver.

I'm opting out of this discussion because half the time I don't agree with what I've already said...