QuantumT wrote: ↑Fri May 25, 2018 11:15 pm
How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God? (emphasis added by me, cs)
By making an emotional decision based on a crisis averted by something he/she considers divine.
Thank you, Quant. There's been a lot of discussion in this thread about what God is, what atheists think and what theists believe. You appear to be the only poster to address the question asked by the OP.
I cannot imagine any other answer being more on point than yours.
You also indicated that belief cannot originate in knowledge. I am in complete agreement. I was referencing (less directly than you) the same concept when I wrote that conviction (i.e. belief) cannot serve as evidence for God (or for anything).
Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 7:02 pm
You wrote:
I don't see those beliefs as opposing... perhaps because I don't define "God" as otherness or anything distinctive at all. So they are both true.
If they are both true and you accept the fact that you are nothing it means God is also nothing or without a defining reality. How else can they both be true? If they are both true, what is happening and why is it happening?
"I am nothing" is true in the sense of recognizing and acknowledging that my identity, and any idea of me being separate, is completely manufactured/made-up.
"I am God" is true in the sense of seeing ALL as one ("me" included). No separate "source". ALL "God". Nobody else here that's not "God".
In other words: WHOLENESS... BEHIND the superficial ideas/agendas/separations/divisions that humans imagine/create/identify during their experience on this Earth stage.
As I see it, fractions are real? One is wholeness. It can be divided also into lawful fractions. Can One, two halves, four quarters and eight eights exist simultaneously as levels of reality? If they can, then the ONE can manifest within it lawful fractions of the whole. But the fraction is not the whole. The question becomes the conscious potential for the fraction to evolve closer to the isness it is within.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 10:58 pm
As I see it, fractions are real? One is wholeness. It can be divided also into lawful fractions. Can One, two halves, four quarters and eight eights exist simultaneously as levels of reality? If they can, then the ONE can manifest within it lawful fractions of the whole. But the fraction is not the whole. The question becomes the conscious potential for the fraction to evolve closer to the isness it is within.
Uh huh, whatever, Nick. You're dividing and convoluting again. I answered your question... you're welcome. I'm done here.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 10:58 pm
As I see it, fractions are real? One is wholeness. It can be divided also into lawful fractions. Can One, two halves, four quarters and eight eights exist simultaneously as levels of reality? If they can, then the ONE can manifest within it lawful fractions of the whole. But the fraction is not the whole. The question becomes the conscious potential for the fraction to evolve closer to the isness it is within.
Uh huh, whatever, Nick. You're dividing and convoluting again. I answered your question... you're welcome. I'm done here.
That is always how it goes. So who looses: the denier
“Colors are the deeds/ and sufferings of light.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Such a wonderful concept worth pondering. It is the same idea as fractions. but when blind emotional denial kicks in the mind closes. Sad but true.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 10:58 pm
As I see it, fractions are real? One is wholeness. It can be divided also into lawful fractions. Can One, two halves, four quarters and eight eights exist simultaneously as levels of reality? If they can, then the ONE can manifest within it lawful fractions of the whole. But the fraction is not the whole. The question becomes the conscious potential for the fraction to evolve closer to the isness it is within.
Uh huh, whatever, Nick. You're dividing and convoluting again. I answered your question... you're welcome. I'm done here.
That is always how it goes. So who looses: the denier
What am I denying, Nick?
You asked me how both beliefs could be true. I told you. Instead of acknowledging that I provided an explanation to you, you start rambling about fractions... which are DIVISIONS of the WHOLE... which I already described as a superficial human idea! So, what am I DENYING?
Lacewing wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 11:13 pm
Uh huh, whatever, Nick. You're dividing and convoluting again. I answered your question... you're welcome. I'm done here.
That is always how it goes. So who looses: the denier
What am I denying, Nick?
You asked me how both beliefs could be true. I told you. Instead of acknowledging that I provided an explanation to you, you start rambling about fractions... which are DIVISIONS of the WHOLE... which I already described as a superficial human idea! So, what am I DENYING?
You are denying the value of intellectual questions. You assert that divisions of the Whole do not objectively exist but are rather superficial human ideals. This is like saying mathematical relationships do not objectively exist. I understand what you are saying but see no reason not to question it.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:49 pm
You are denying the value of intellectual questions.
I didn't think your questions were intellectual. I thought you were grasping and convoluting, as I said. That's not denial... it's disinterest. You need to stop accusing people of being deniers for anything and everything that doesn't match up with your ideas. That's very childish and dishonest. Especially considering that your own ideas are so full of denial.
commonsense wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 10:38 pm
Thank you, Quant. There's been a lot of discussion in this thread about what God is, what atheists think and what theists believe. You appear to be the only poster to address the question asked by the OP.
I cannot imagine any other answer being more on point than yours.
You also indicated that belief cannot originate in knowledge. I am in complete agreement. I was referencing (less directly than you) the same concept when I wrote that conviction (i.e. belief) cannot serve as evidence for God (or for anything).
YW!
In a chaotic and crazy world, it feels great when two minds think alike. It restores hope for the future of reason (sanity) and unity
True. In M-theory membranes collide and make new universes. From the perspective of each universe, it looks like all came from nothing. That's one option.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:49 pm
You are denying the value of intellectual questions.
I didn't think your questions were intellectual. I thought you were grasping and convoluting, as I said. That's not denial... it's disinterest. You need to stop accusing people of being deniers for anything and everything that doesn't match up with your ideas. That's very childish and dishonest. Especially considering that your own ideas are so full of denial.
Blind denial is a negative emotional attitude. When it concerns concept of God it is a preconception that it is all bunk. I can understand why since many have been hurt by the actions of secularized religion. The negativity of blind denial is obvious on the forum. The conclusion has already been established and is supported by blind denial. Jacob Needleman was an atheist who hated religion. He changed because readings he did necessary for his job made him realize the superficiality of seculrized concepts
How did your ideas about religion change?
Well, as I say, in my life it was more or less thrust upon me. I needed a job. It was 1962—ancient times—I was hired at San Francisco State and I was obliged to teach a course called the History of Western Religious Thought. For me I had no desire to teach anything like that. I was totally allergic to religion. But I had training as a philosophy student, a grad student, a PhD. I did very well, was at the best colleges, best universities— Harvard, Yale—and I was willing to undertake preparing myself to teach such a course. Philosophers generally don’t want to come anywhere near that kind of stuff—nor did I. But I honorably tried to prepare myself.
It meant I had to read theologians, Christian writers like St. Augustine—whom I had hated. You see in my book where I talk about burning the pages of the book, that’s exactly what happened. I’m not exaggerating. I was so happy to see it go up in flames; I had suffered so much from that book. And later I read it and I loved it—a great, great man.
So it forced me to read and prepare myself, and I couldn’t believe how superficial my understanding of religion had been, even with a liberal education from the best universities. I discovered things about religion; I couldn’t believe how good, how interesting, how profound—and how distorted it had become, how shallow it had become. So more and more I got deeply interested in religion because I had to teach it. And then I got personally interested in my own personal, spiritual search which I started to undertake.
The only thing I deny is necessary psychological slavery to the human condition which denies a person's ability to become open to experience objective human meaning and purpose. This is denied by those who assert it doesn't exist and we are only capable of living by our own subjective conceptions of human meaning and purpose. Everything I've studied and verified indicates that we are more than just indoctrinated atoms of society or what I call "the Great Beast."
You are the only person I’ve read on this forum who is open to the idea that “We are still sleep walking, in a dream-state filled with illusions and ideas that trick us...”
Come on now.
It’s a well-known concept and many folks are taught early.
Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream
It’s also a well-known Buddhist view.
Realizing the view via reflection upon experience is choiceless.
So is the hearing of teachings when young.
Saying and understanding are not the same. How many threads have you seen discussing what we ARE as opposed to threads arguing about what to do and or what to believe?
I thought about that question awhile. It has to do with the past. Is the past less of a dream than the present? Doing anything in dreamland does not mean that people can do anything in dreamland. In dreams, awareness finds action without causation. The past faithfully recorded, reveals facts. Thus, we must conclude that the past, faithfully recorded, is more real than the present. No wonder the media has such a sacred duty which it insists on corrupting with agenda, for their king of ideology.
Walker wrote: ↑Sat May 26, 2018 7:24 am
Come on now.
It’s a well-known concept and many folks are taught early.
Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream
It’s also a well-known Buddhist view.
Realizing the view via reflection upon experience is choiceless.
So is the hearing of teachings when young.
Saying and understanding are not the same. How many threads have you seen discussing what we ARE as opposed to threads arguing about what to do and or what to believe?
I thought about that question awhile. It has to do with the past. Is the past less of a dream than the present? Doing anything in dreamland does not mean that people can do anything in dreamland. In dreams, awareness finds action without causation. The past faithfully recorded, reveals facts. Thus, we must conclude that the past, faithfully recorded, is more real than the present. No wonder the media has such a sacred duty which it insists on corrupting with agenda, for their king of ideology.
But what facts are recorded? It will be recorded that teens are dying at a rapid rate. Then some fool psychologists will rationalize it in some nonsensical way and people will believe it. It is just dreamland. What else can be expected of the young having been deprived through a declining society of any inner connection to higher meaning? But still you'll read the normal rationalizations and people will call it factual
