Where was 'god' before 'he' created the universe?

[ReliStuPhD]

However, the psychological motivation is always there and I have seen it operate in most people I have engaged in this dialogue.

Including yourself, of course? After all, you're a vegetarian because you believe it's true (?) to do so, but you think it's true because of a psychological motivation (i.e. a subconscious good feeling), right? (Two-way streets kinda suck, don't they? )

[Ned]

I could describe it, but I don't see the point since it was for those present, and it happened a long time ago. If you really want, I will describe it for you as best I can.

Yes, please do so!

The immeasurable pain and suffering in the world is due to human activity, since people are free to do bad things if they choose, and God does not intervene and prevent it, due to Gods promise to not interfere unless requested to do so.

I and millions of others have requested exactly that for ages (eliminations of all the suffering) with no apparent results. God is finally and ultimately responsible for his creation and the incredible mess it is in is a very poor report card. Saying that people have free will and can do bad things is a poor copout and denying of responsibility. Very convenient and quite cowardly, in my opinion. The result is the final judgement on god's creation and it stinks to high heaven (pun intended!)

I really don't know what could shake my faith or change my mind.

So you mean that your truth is not falsifiable? That sounds like dogma, rather than rational conviction. One answer I have heard to date was that if anyone could find Jesus's bones, that would shake his belief because it would prove that Jesus did not ascend to heaven. However, pressed on the issue, he admitted that no archeologists could convince him that the bones belonged to Jesus so, finally, his faith wasn't falsifiable either -- it was just a convenient evasion.

[Ned]

However, the psychological motivation is always there and I have seen it operate in most people I have engaged in this dialogue.

Including yourself, of course? After all, you're a vegetarian because you believe it's true (?) to do so, but you think it's true because of a psychological motivation (i.e. a subconscious good feeling), right? (Two-way streets kinda suck, don't they? )

Of course I am aware of my own psychological motivation. As a matter of fact, I am sure that's all there is. I do not believe in 'free will' and I am sure everything I do and think is the result of long cause-and-effect chains, causing me to act and think the way I do. Most contemporary neuro-scientists agree with me on this.

So what?

We act based on the assumption of having free will, however illogical that assumption is.

[thedoc]

I could describe it, but I don't see the point since it was for those present, and it happened a long time ago. If you really want, I will describe it for you as best I can.

Yes, please do so!

My wife and I were attending a religious conference, and during the last service there was a large group of people in an auditorium and close to the end all was quiet till there was a localized rustling, that sounded like people murmuring and moving in their seats, that moved around the room and finally settled on one person. That young woman then stood up and started to sing, in tongues, and then sang the translation of that prayer. The way it moved around the room seemed to me to only possibly mean one thing, that the Holy Spirit moved around the room till it settled on that one person to sing that prayer. I don't remember the date, but it happened before our first daughter was born, and that was over 30 years ago.

[Ned]

Thank you for describing it for me. Of course it could have been staged for your benefit -- organized religious events were often unmasked as a fraudulent show-biz events. It would be more convincing if it happened at a scientific convention of leading cosmologists!

On the topic of falsifiablility, there is another side of the coin:

Of course, the reverse is also true and believers could ask what could convince me that there is a god?

Lawrence Krauss (American Physicist) gave a beautiful answer:

“if I walked outside at night and all the stars were organized to read: “I am your God communicating with you – believe in Me” and every human being worldwide witnessed this in their native language, this would be suggestive (but far from conclusive as it’s a perception and could be delusion”

You see, god could so easily provide evidence to his existence, and the lack of it is a very strong indication that religion is a mass delusion.

[ReliStuPhD]

Of course I am aware of my own psychological motivation. As a matter of fact, I am sure that's all there is. I do not believe in 'free will' and I am sure everything I do and think is the result of long cause-and-effect chains, causing me to act and think the way I do. Most contemporary neuro-scientists agree with me on this.

So what?

We act based on the assumption of having free will, however illogical that assumption is.

At least you're consistent. Carry on.

[thedoc]

Thank you for describing it for me. Of course it could have been staged for your benefit -- organized religious events were often unmasked as a fraudulent show-biz events. It would be more convincing if it happened at a scientific convention of leading cosmologists!

The only answer I can give to that is it wasn't that kind of a gathering, and we knew several of the people who organized the gathering. I would think that at a scientific gathering there would be a multitude of scientific explanations and the actual credit would not be given properly.

On the topic of falsifiablility, there is another side of the coin:

Of course, the reverse is also true and believers could ask what could convince me that there is a god?

Lawrence Krauss (American Physicist) gave a beautiful answer:

“if I walked outside at night and all the stars were organized to read: “I am your God communicating with you – believe in Me” and every human being worldwide witnessed this in their native language, this would be suggestive (but far from conclusive as it’s a perception and could be delusion”

You see, god could so easily provide evidence to his existence, and the lack of it is a very strong indication that religion is a mass delusion.

Yes, God could prove God's existence if God so chose, the odd thing is that so many people talk about God as if God were some automatic responder, that if you push certain buttons, you get a specific response. So many will claim that God granted humans free will and then act as if God has no free will. I can only reply that God will reply if God chooses.

[Ned]

...and if we don't understand god's actions and they don't make any sense to the human mind, and if they are illogical and full of contradictions, then there is the comfortable old fallback of saying: "oh well, we are not supposed to understand god's mind and his ways are mysterious".

It would be so much simpler to say that the whole idea doesn't make any sense and it was probably made up by a lot of people who had nothing better to do than to make up stories, like all the other hundreds of religions that were made up in human history.

How far are we going to stretch the credulity of rational minds, I wonder?

Anyway, your stand is clear and I thank you again for providing me with this valuable input on how you are able to maintain your faith in spite of all the overwhelming evidence against the plausibility of this divine fantasy

PS. There are some minds that no light will penetrate, I am sorry to find. Maybe in time, after proper reflection?

[thedoc]

PS. There are some minds that no light will penetrate, I am sorry to find.

A friend of mine has a word for that, "Mindweld", their minds are welded shut.

[Ned]

I am willing to change my mind about god if given proper and reliable evidence.

Can you say the same about your beliefs?

I have given you tons of reasons to demonstrate to you that your faith is an irrational delusion. None of them seem to have made a difference.

So whose mind is welded shut, I wonder?

[thedoc]

...and if we don't understand god's actions and they don't make any sense to the human mind, and if they are illogical and full of contradictions, then there is the comfortable old fallback of saying: "oh well, we are not supposed to understand god's mind and his ways are mysterious".

It would be so much simpler to say that the whole idea doesn't make any sense and it was probably made up by a lot of people who had nothing better to do than to make up stories, like all the other hundreds of religions that were made up in human history.

How far are we going to stretch the credulity of rational minds, I wonder?

Anyway, your stand is clear and I thank you again for providing me with this valuable input on how you are able to maintain your faith in spite of all the overwhelming evidence against the plausibility of this divine fantasy

PS. There are some minds that no light will penetrate, I am sorry to find. Maybe in time, after proper reflection?

So far I have seen no concrete evidence either way, just a lot of rhetoric, some of it very unkind. There is no physical proof that God exists, there is also no physical proof that God does not exist. And that some "TV Ministers" do bad things is not proof of anything, except that there some bad people who call themselves Christians. Are they any worse, or different, than phony contractors who go into an area after a natural disaster to cheat people out of their money?

[thedoc]

I am willing to change my mind about god if given proper and reliable evidence.

Can you say the same about your beliefs?

I have given you tons of reasons to demonstrate to you that your faith is an irrational delusion. None of them seem to have made a difference.

So whose mind is welded shut, I wonder?

What physical evidence have you presented? so far all I have seen is rhetoric and logical arguments, and as I have said Religion is not logical, so a logical argument is meaningless in this case. Many will demand physical evidence before they will believe in God.

[Ned]

doc, I think that you and I are done on this topic.

Now I will wait to see if anyone else has anything interesting to contribute to this thread.

I thank you again for your open and honest answers, they were great help to me.

Maybe we talk again on other topics?

[ReliStuPhD]

“if I walked outside at night and all the stars were organized to read: 'I am your God communicating with you – believe in Me' and every human being worldwide witnessed this in their native language, this would be suggestive (but far from conclusive as it’s a perception and could be delusion).”

A fascinating quote. Krauss is basically saying "If every person on the planet saw something that defied the laws of physics but was perfectly consistent with an omnipotent God... it still might not be rational to believe in God." With standards such as that, one wonders if Krauss could ever be convinced. He certainly doesn't hold science to the same standard of skepticism. I'm willing to bet he'd scoff at any such insistence that science demonstrate the theory of evolution to that level of assent (and it then still being "far from conclusive"). And if Krauss actually means this, I think he's far more irrational than the religionists he opposes to vehemently.

(As an aside, it's also worth noting he doesn't seem to understand what the word "nothing" means. Krauss' "nothing" is most certainly "something.")

[thedoc]

doc, I think that you and I are done on this topic.
Now I will wait to see if anyone else has anything interesting to contribute to this thread.
I thank you again for your open and honest answers, they were great help to me.

Maybe we talk again on other topics?

Let me know what threads or topics you are active on, but understand I don't have opinions on everything, just a few, and most of them are just a bit off the wall.

I like to think that I see things as they are, more than how I would like them to be, and so far my experience has born that out. I'm guessing that my early experiencing in oil painting shaped that in me, I had to actually see something in order to paint it. I remember one day I was the back porch on an apartment on Market St. Harrisburg Pa. and I was over looking the capitol buildings trying to paint them late in the day. It was frustrating because the light kept changing, and I would paint awhile and the scene was different, so I painted some more and again it looked different. I don't think I ever finished that painting, but that was a long time ago.