Proving that god doesn't exist

[ramon]

To apeal to the idea that we cannot know what God considers to be good or fair is a cop-out of the highest order.

I do not agree.

I actually said that analysing God by human standards is bound to be wrong and faulty. Remember God is omniscient therefore it fully comphrehends every consequence

eg. Allowing Jesus to be crucified doesn't seem fair but maybe if you weigh up all the goodwill and charity that has been generated by Christians since that time and into the future until there are no more Christians this more then compensates for the pain of Jesus.

Yes, shit does happen. I'll admit that, but don't tell me that all the shit that does happen, happens for a reason that could be considered good.

I said it happens for a reason.

Often with time , wisdom and a increase in perspective some good can be identified out of it.

There is some psychological work which I haven't seen for many years but basically people who do what I advocate ( try to find the positive ) lead happier lifes. ( I think it might be called reframing ).

As we seem to be in agreement that absolute truth seems to be beyond human understanding why not find some personal truth which helps you in your journey

To say that it does implies that we would be worse off if these events did not take place. A quick perusal of 20th century history would seem to kick this idea in the head. Not everyone does so well out of their adversity.

Take WWII probably the worst thing to have happended in 20th Century.

I don't think it can be argued that one result of all that suffering is that most of the major participants are less warlike ( excluding America.

So say WWI happended but WWII had not for another 50 Years. Because of WWI there would still have been all the arms development and so probably most of the participants would have possessed nuclear weapopns but no real appreciation of how devastating they were.

I think that would have been worse by far.

We could have destroyed all life on the planet.

[Auxin]

"Allowing Jesus to be crucified doesn't seem fair but..."

You forget that christians are trinitarian, to them Jesus WAS God. So God didnt allow Jesus to be killed, he allowed himself to be killed.

"WWII... I don't think it can be argued that one result of all that suffering is that most of the major participants are less warlike ( excluding America."

AND ISRAEL- dont forget them, the only reason they are genocidal is because they were subject to genocide and just like an abused child they take comfort in being in a place of power where they can be the abusers.

[gomaos]

You forget that christians are trinitarian, to them Jesus WAS God. So God didnt allow Jesus to be killed, he allowed himself to be killed.

Yeah isn't that such absurd thinking.

Those roman bastards nail a jewish revolutionary onto the cross, and his followers actually believe he consented...truely warped thinking

AND ISRAEL- dont forget them, the only reason they are genocidal is because they were subject to genocide and just like an abused child they take comfort in being in a place of power where they can be the abusers.

Exactly. I couldn't have put it any better.

Today's regime in Israel is just as faschist and racist as Hitler was...at least...

[ 14. May 2003, 23:42: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[ramon]

You forget that christians are trinitarian, to them Jesus WAS God. So God didnt allow Jesus to be killed, he allowed himself to be killed.

Just chose Jesus because that was the first example of something which was unfair which has spawned alot of good.

For the purposes of the point you don't have to except that Jesus was any more the son of God then any one of us merely someone who advocated that humans be descent to each other and whose teaching have caught on.

I would have used Buddha but haven't heard any stories of his mistreatment. Guess he didn't dwell on those type of things.

AND ISRAEL- dont forget them, the only reason they are genocidal is because they were subject to genocide and just like an abused child they take comfort in being in a place of power where they can be the abusers.

I had forgoten them but even if I had renembered I don't think I would have mentioned them as Israel tends to contradict my point. Lets hope that some time in the future people are able to look at the middle east situation as it is currently and find some good that has come out of it.

Although from a Jewish perspective they would identify the nation of Israel as the good that came from the sufferring.

[ 15. May 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Ramon ]

[Yeti101]

I guess it can be argued either way eh? Suffering can and should lead to emapthy and long term good. But only if the people experiencing the suffering have the will to make it happen. I would still say that it is hard to make a net gain considering the amount of suffering that occurs, but we may as well try. If shit is going to happen I don't think there is anything wrong with an attitude that it can lead to positive things. We may as well try.

In reply to Nabraxas:

 

quote:

---

to see why any statement like "there is no god because...", "there is a god because...",or "is there a god?" are meaningless interms ov genuine scientific inquirery.

---

I couldn't agree more. But this is philosophy, where science is too scared or too useless to tread. What is meaningful are peoples beliefs about God. I don't use this argument to prove He doesn't exist. I use it to (a) Show that the certain arguments that attempt to prove God exists are flawed and

(b)show that what some people belive about God is logically inconsistent, or just plain do not make sense.

 

quote:

---

leave the "yes/no" 2 valued Aristotalian logic system behind, visit the excluded middle & you may stop worrying over meaningless questions & answers.

---

Exactly. Apart from "genuine scientific inquirery" of course which requires the use of some logic. I however do no think that these questions are completely meaningless, they are just not very useful.

 

quote:

---

an atheist is as much a believer as a theist.

---

True, but there is a fundamentallly different basis for their beliefs. Or they would say that there is.

[nabraxas]

yeti, you somewhat miss the point. philosophy (or any communication system) must utalise scientific method- or it becomes meaningless.

in everyday life we use absolute concepts- without thinking- "abortion is wrong", "aboriginals are ...."- these kind ov statements have 0 information content & reflect nothing more than the staters current belief system.

goto the link & find out why a more careful use ov english can reduce senseless conflict over meaningless statements. these conflicts are deadly & have been around for thousands ov years- we really need to evovle.

-on another note, a proof that god doesn't exist which relies on "He aint doing much"- seems abit dodgy to me.

[ 15. May 2003, 11:51: Message edited by: nabraxas ]

[Yeti101]

If by scientific method you mean logic and rationale, then I agree. If you mean empirical evidence gathering and inductive reasoning, then I do not. Philsophy is what it is because there is no physical evidence for what we discuss. At best we can infer things from what we see around us.

Yes, these absolute statements are meaningless in terms of actual knowledge or information content. There is indeed a corresponding opinion that any statement about God is meaningless.

So I would agree that in some ways all this arguing about God could be seen as a form of really articulate gibberish. But that is not a uniformly accepted view, even with philosophers.

I like the link. Good one. Even attempts to guard against unpleasant effects of moral relativism, something that most linguistics driven philosophical systems do not seem to do.

But will clarification stop people from disagreeing? Some people will never accept their view as being culturally relative.

Sure, it's not a conclusive disproof. But the fact that he ain't doin much does not exactly count in his favor either. No we cannot say if God exists or not. But I think we can say that some of the things some people say about him have logical inconsistencies. And if we don't tolerate a logical inconsistency in science, then why should we in something as important as religion?

[ 15. May 2003, 17:08: Message edited by: Yeti101 ]

[Thelema]

BECAUSE OF COURSE positivism is just another meta-scheme which comes down to philosophical orientation anyway. The advent of the scientific method somehow drew all the truth-sayers along with it. So then to assert that the only meaningful statements are those that could be falsifiable in some way becomes a monument to truth, borrowed from science. But why equate potential falsifiability with statements that are meaningful? This is in itself a philosophical presumption.

Of course the Pragmatist can get around this by saying "truth is what works" leaving the door open to ethical and religious statements as merely ones along a continuum. But then we may argue about how we get ethical religious statements that "work"...not so nearly as clear cut as what makes falsifiable statements "work".

[gomaos]

I'm trying very hard not to be emotional here...which is very hard for a WATER/air/fire person with no earth at all...

Most of us know by FEELING what is good and what is evil...it's not hard...

if OGD idly stands by watching children/women/men suffer horrendously and then thinks:"it's all according to the MASTERPLAN, EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHALL BE, pain and suffering is all calculated and within reason(has anyone seen the photo of the african baby/child dying from hunger/malnutrition with a huge vulture WAITING in the background?)then fucking god is not god but merely an evil demon that should be EXTERMINATED(but how?)

one of the caesar's of rome had thousands of kilometres of roads lined with crosses with tortured dying christians on them...

cool hey

[ 16. May 2003, 00:38: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[Auxin]

"thousands of kilometres of roads lined with crosses with tortured dying christians on them..."

True, gods are constructs of the mind so if you got rid of christians there would be no christian god- but I dont think any of the christian induced problems are enough to warrant genoside. When they come to your door hollerin about GAWD A'MIGHTY just say you dont want their pamphlets and if they start talkin' about 'your damnation' say 'this damn nation has laws against trespassing- get gone!' To me christians are like flies, I have no problem with them but if they are buzzing in my ear I dont hesitate to shoo them away.

[woof woof woof]

God exists, simply because everything exists.

everything is energy.

since everything is energy and poured us in this mold that allowed us to think and preceive... and we are a reflection of the all..... well it should be clear now.

Well tell you this mon, I be guiding I.....,irie & limin on the cosmic natural mystic flow.

may the light guide your innerplant to grow upwards.

[t st tantra]

i love that this spirituality forum is in the con-science section.con,against a contraction of contra as in pro and con.its like the two sides of the brain,for me spirituality is largely an exploration of the irrational ,and esp my experiences of that kind.

t s t .

[nabraxas]

"Most of us know by FEELING what is good and what is evil" or "I believe most of us intuit by feeling what appears good & what appears evil -at that moment" &

"Everything is energy" or "Everything seems to be energy, from some perspective"

i am very dumb & trying to talk about a very important topic that could be well above my ability to explain, or comprehend analasis ov-(sorry thelma, i read your reply X2 but couldn't quite get the gist - i really am quite thick).

anyway, i will prepare a topic on semantics(basically copying a text from RAW's Quantum Psychology)- so as not to sidetrack Gomaos rant.

as i said i am quite thick so, when i post it, could anyone interested in replying use language a simpleton like me can understand. sorry ;>

& could an omnipotent god create a rock he couldn't lift?

[gomaos]

one of the caesar's of rome had thousands of kilometres of roads lined with crosses with tortured dying christians on them...

cool hey

For all those who didn't notice I ws being cynical...just trying to "track" "dog"s logic when he looks down from the heavens while eternal maidens massage him, suck his dick and an eternal lackey hands him an everlasting joint...

Ogd must be thinking:

"Oh look at this...these dumb humans who call themselves christians and claim to worhsip ME are being nailed to the cross because an evil sadistic imperator needs the thought of them when he masturbates so he can COME....shouldn't I do something for them...oh here comes the eternal syringe with my eternal heroin...why bother with those earthlings...?"

Hell no I don't want no christians or anyone else crucified, not even Bush or Howard(just put them on a remote island somewhere where they can have all luxuries except contact to the outside world)I just put this example here to clarify my claim that god doesn't care and never has and never will...therefore even if something superior to humans exists, which is easily possible, it is not of good nature and should definitely not be worshipped, but rather be protected against...

God is the Devil....

(BTW re christians: My neighbours are christians,

I made it clear from the beginning that I want nothing to do with God and stuff...

Sometimes they sing karaoke for hours on end, days on end, everything they sing must be at least 30 years old and stale...but that's ok I rather have neighbours that sing than enighbours that scream...

hehe, once I got drunk and played that song "my game of loving" by White Noise, Electric storm album, REAL LOUD on my very powerful stereo, which is basically mostly electronically enhanced sex screams and noises, and she came over, didn't complain but gave me some clothes and toys for the kids(the kids weren't home, otherwise I wouldn't have played this stuff)...I couldn't argue with that, so I turned it down...the music I mean...

I can be quite tolerant of people's belief, so long as they are tolerant of me....

[ 18. May 2003, 09:54: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[bluetonguedragon]

Human history is littered with attempts to explain the unexplainable.To know the unknowable.If you look rationally at history you will see that many major world events and great civilizations were built on interpretation of information divined from the mystical.From Alexander the Great and his Prophetic Dreams,Ceaser and Soothsayers(ides of march)Ancient Celtic,Germanic Rites and Ceremonies,Te oracle of Delphi(greek)the list is endless.Almost every culture that has ever existed has had some sort of belief system based on visions,dreamings,afterlife,altered states,mystical states,dieties,aliens etc.If this experience is available to an individual in a community,then there is a tendancy to provide a societal mechanism to support and validate the experience in consensus reality.Belief and faith then replace experience in the nonexperiential community.People even today in contemporary societies usually are ignorant of behavioral mechanisms manifested by belief.It seems to me that there seems to be experiences available to us as humans,and they all have common threads.nd things like religion etc are just vain attempts to manufacture compliance to an ego-centric idealistic interpretation devoid of subjectivity to followers.one of the challenges is to liberate human consciousness from institutialisation,dogma,doctrine,belief,ego,social and cultural conditioning etc.When all that is left for an individual to experience,is experience itself,then its in the purity of that experience that exists truth.

[Northern Gnome]

I didn't believe in God for many years, in fact, I rejected that God existed at all, or had ever existed. The thing that convinced me that such a being couldn't exist was the suffering of innocents, of children. I made a harsh judgement, that any God who would allow such things did not deserve to be God and that I would rather go to hell suffering for an eternity than to worship such a being. Then, a few years ago I had a soulful experience, I had a dream that was unlike any dream I had ever had before or since, it didn't seem like a dream at all, in fact, waking up to normal reality seems to be more of a imagined dream than what happened to me that afternoon nap. Although, at the time I took the being of light to be "God", today I am not so sure if it was God or the conscious collective of many souls joined together forming a being greater than the sum of its parts.

Here is what happened to me, a professional writer was able to edit it into the following form for a book. The following write doesn't include everything I saw, the portion that he edited out was how on my way back to my body I felt like I was being divided into smaller and smaller divisions of my greater self until I became the single individual that I am here. I saw that from the larger perspective individuality is like a pyramid, that we are each pieces of a huge soul pyramid, at the top is the capstone of consciousness that is completely aware of all its pieces, every thought, act and deed that we go through, but as a small part of the whole we are partitioned away from that greater awareness, divided in physicality from both our greater conciousness and our other selves, limited by the gift of individuality which allows us the freedom of individual choice which within a group of individuals effects others as either good or evil, depending upon the wishes or choices of others, but from the larger perspective we only help or hurt one being, ourselves.

Personally, I'm still playing both sides of the fense, believing this to be true all the while still living as if it isn't. It is difficult to live any other way, as individuals we have individual needs, most of us blind to who we really are do not treat one another as we should, those who do know are often too weak to resist the pressures of day to day living in a physical world and fall to our own wants, defending ego which claims all for itself wanting to continue the illusion of separateness, as I do all too often.

One warm afternoon in 1996 I took a short nap. I awoke within it to find myself standing in the presence of a huge sun or sphere of light and I quickly learned that this sun was pure consciousness and awareness. Although its surface was only swirling light and did not have a face, it seemed as if it was smiling at me and had nothing but love for me.

I felt its thoughts as one with my own and felt it peering deeply into my own awareness, knowing everything about me all at once. Standing in its presence I was overcome by a deep sense of awe and at the same time I was surprised to find myself so fully conscious in this empty, but light-filled void. There was nothing in existence for me but myself and this sun smiling its awareness at me. It was unlike any place on earth, and yet as real as waking reality. In fact, it was more real; I was super-conscious.

Suddenly I came to a profound awareness that this sun was God! I was so overwhelmed and surprised that God was real that I gasped and then yelled out, “You’re Real!” I had always had a deep mistrust of religion. Years before this experience, I had decided for many seemingly valid reasons that religion and God were only a product of the human mind, yet there I was standing in the presence of what I knew without a doubt was God. What I had previously thought to be the truth about the universe was shattered and I stood there stunned, having had my world turned around so quickly.

I was happy because I had always hoped that God was real and that there was a future beyond the physical. As I stood in its presence, I perceived myself to be nothing but pure awareness and without a body. This sun of awareness fully merged with me, seeing everything inside of me. It saw everything I had ever done (and failed to do) both good and bad, and yet I did not sense or feel this Being was judging me or my past. There was no serial or motion-picture-like review of my life, just a sudden and full knowing about all things I have ever done, thought and experienced.

Because this sun of awareness/God was peering so fully and deeply into me, I felt totally naked, more naked than if I were standing without clothes in front of a million people. This Being seemed to be the consciousness of everyone I had ever known plus that of millions of others. It seemed to be everyone, but incredible as it might seem, most of all it seemed to be me.

Even though I had no awareness of having a body, this feeling of nakedness was more than I could stand. Before I had time to think about what I was doing, I began moving away from this Being as fast as I could. It wasn’t that I was afraid, nor that I wanted to get away from this wonderful sun of light, it was more like an automatic response to feeling more naked than I thought naked could be.

As I was traveling away from this Being I found myself bursting through some kind of barrier into a blackness that was filled with wonderful stars; space. As I continued moving forward at a tremendous speed through the star fields, I soon found myself slowing down as if I was up against another barrier or membrane. It seemed to stretch slightly and then I burst through it into another blackness of star-filled space.

I continued to speed away faster and faster, but regardless of how much physical distance I traveled, I was never any farther away from the sun of awareness at all. I quickly traveled through several star-filled spaces, at least six of them beyond the great sphere of light, each separated from one another by barriers that I was easily penetrating. As I passed through each layer, my speed increased each time, but its consciousness was still with me. It was still deeply within my own consciousness.

All of a sudden, I fell through the top of my bedroom ceiling, hit my body with a jolt and immediately woke up. The jolt was so strong that my bed physically bounced as my body jerked awake in response to the sudden stop. I opened my eyes and immediately spoke in a low and powerful voice, "I am that great I am." I said this almost involuntarily; the words spilled out of my mouth without even thinking about what or why I was saying it. I also knew what this meant: that I was the very consciousness that I was trying to get away from!

As much as I tried to get away from that Sun of Awareness, I could never get one fraction of an inch farther away from it, no matter how far or fast I traveled. Even after waking up, it was still with me. To this day, I still feel and know its presence. I believe that this Sun/Intelligence/God wasn't a single Being, but is the center of all beings, that it is me, you and perhaps all conscious beings.

From this experience I think that somewhere at the center of each of us is a spark of this same light, and without it we would not have consciousness, and perhaps without us it would not exist either. As I was flying away from this being, I had the impression that I was traveling through several layers within a sphere, but I was bursting through layers like the layers of an onion but between each layer was star-filled space. I can’t really tell you if I was traveling from the inside out, or the outside in, but as I traveled through them I had an impression that the farther I got from the sphere of light, the smaller I got and the more divided I became.

Because of this experience, I came to see everyone around me as myself. At the same time, I also see this as equally true from everyone else’s perspective, that I am them too. They too can look around and only see other parts of themselves, other selves experiencing life from another point of view, separated by their physical bodies and world, by their individual minds and wills, but in reality they are one at their core.

These feelings and thoughts were so strong within me that I had trouble referring to other people at work as anything other than “I.” I had a tendency to think about others as just another part of myself. Just as I think about my hands as being a part of me, I would sometimes refer to others as “I” instead of the name of the person. For example, instead of saying, “He had finished working on that project” it came out as “I had finished working on that project.” I had to re-learn how to refer to others as separate from myself. After four years, I still think of others as myself, but now I can stop from verbalizing it.

If I had the chance to do it over again and stand in the presence of this sun-intelligence-God, I wouldn't run away from it no matter how startling it is to be seen to such depth. I now hope that I would stand in its presence no matter how naked I felt. I don't believe that my motive for running was because I couldn’t stand to face the light, or that I felt like a bad person, but because I was so unaccustomed to being seen so fully, so suddenly, so clearly and to such depth. Unfortunately my flight away from it took place before I could think of what I was doing and why.

The words I spoke after the experience, "I am that great I am" meant that, although I am individual here, I am also a part of every other consciousness at the great central point of consciousness; God. I am now secure in the knowledge that this presence of consciousness has always been with me, and that I have never been alone and never will be alone. I now know that this presence is closer to me than anything else in the universe. I had been so accustomed to it that I didn’t know it was there, much like becoming used to a smell in a room, once you are there with it long enough, it begins to fade into the background. Like silence, it is always there, maybe in the background, behind and between the sounds, but always there.

After I had this experience the song "Phantom of the Opera" sung by Sara Brightman and Micheal Crawford, and the song "One of Us" sung by Joan Osborn had completely new horizons.

One of Us

If God had a name, what would it be

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory

What would you ask if you had just one question

Yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Trying to make His way home

If God had a face, what would it look like

And would you want to see

If seeing meant that you would have to believe

In things like Heaven and in Jesus and the Saints

And all the Prophets and...

Yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Trying to make His way home

Tryin' to make His way home

Back up to Heaven all alone

Nobody callin' on the phone

'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

Yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Trying to make His way home

Just tryin' to make his way home

Like a holy rolling stone

Back up to Heaven all alone

Just tryin' to make his way home

Nobody callin' on the phone

'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

===

Sarah Brightman & Michael Crawford - Phantom Of The Opera

(written by: Andrew Lloyd Webber)

Buy this album!

From the album "Phantom Of The Opera"

Christine:

In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came

that voice which calls to me, and speaks my name

and do I dream again, for now I find

the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside my mind

Phantom:

Sing once again with me, our strange duet

my power over you is stronger yet

and though you turn from me to glance behind

the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside you mind

Christine:

Those who have seen your face draw back in fear

I am the mask you wear

Phantom:

It's me they hear

*Christine:

Your spirit and my voice in one combined

the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside my mind

*Phantom:

My spirit and your voice in one combined

the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside your mind

*VOICES*

He's there, the Phantom of the Opera

Beware, the Phantom of the Opera

Phantom:

In all your fantasies, you always knew

that man and mystery

Christine:

Were both in you

Christine

Phantom:

And in this labyrinth, where night is blind, the Phantom of the Opera is here (there), inside my (your) mind

Phantom:

Sing, my angel of music! *spoken*

Christine:

Faulceta of AH's, beginning on high "A" flat above middle "C"

[ 03. June 2003, 21:02: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[gomaos]

I think that most posts here endorse my thesis at the beginning of this thread:

1. There is no all-mighty, all-powerful god, for if there was, IT wouldn't let all the suffering and injustice in human and other life happen.

2. If there was an all-mighty, all-powerful being omni-conscious of every other being in the universe, and it would have the power to interfere and relieve them from pain and misery, but would abstain from doing so, certinly this being is no god but a "demon" at most...

Surely there are spirits.

Salvinorin's tale seems to confirm this, and I have seen a "nature spirit" and talked to it for perhaps a few minutes in 1986...

and a few months later I imagined to hear the voice of god saying: "You are part of nature..."

sure, we imagine that those voices or "visions" of god we have are god...but they are not. They are just spirits, and by no means all-powerful or all-knowing.

nd there is the "group-consciousness" salvinorin talked about... I have tried to describe the very same things in my "chem-huasca" thread...the awareness of every single being at once, the "dna-experience", the inter-connectedness of all lifeforms that can be graphically described as "bubbles which are all interconnected with each other", and you can Experience being every one of them at the same time....

All these things are there, they exist, but sorry, not an all-powerful god who listens to your prayers every night. There's only one person who listens to them and that's...yourself.

[ramon]

being is no god but a "demon" at most...

 

I would have thought that existence of demons would tend to prove the existence of god.

I don't believe in either but if someone proved to me the existence of demons I would automatically take it that God existed as well.

[ramon]

From this experience I think that somewhere at the center of each of us is a spark of this same light, and without it we would not have consciousness, and perhaps without us it would not exist either.

I have a very similar view. I believe that what makes us conscious is what I call a cosmic spark. This is our most fundamental aspect. This same conscious spark inhabits every one of us and every thing that is alive.

Our experiences are a result of the interaction of this cosmic spark and our body. I tend to see our bodies as a type of antennae which influences how we receive the consciousness.

I am sure that most people have noticed that the more we think about something or the more we do a certain activity the more inclined we are to think or do those same things. I tend to see this as tuning the antennae towards those type of thoughts or activities. ( I see this as akin to the Buddhists concept of karma although it doesn’t incorporate the aspects of Karma that are supposed to be left over from previous lives.)

Unselfish actions bring us closer to the real nature of this consciousness ie our antennae has less interference because essentially the concept of self is a delusion. Because we are drawing closer to our true nature we tend to be happier or more fulfilled.

Selfishness tends to increase the interference because it is fuelled by the ego ( Buddhist ego i.e. Our belief that we are a separate self and not the psychological ego relating to feeling good about ourselves ) Interestingly I believe selfishness makes us less happy as we compare what we have and what others have and seek to increase those things we don’t have which we think will make us happy.

This is the basic concept now we complicate it because I subscribe the many universe view of quantum physics. I believe that there is infinite number of universes or a number so large it is beyond our comprehension and in many of these universes I exist but in slightly different variations in each until you have played out every possible variation i.e. prince to pauper, saint to villain etc etc with every aspect of my life. Obviously there is over lap between the variations of myself and the different variations of others so that what I would call the fat villainous pauper version of myself which exists somewhere out there is what someone identifies as themselves now.

Each though and actions dictates which version of myself I am aware of at any given time. Ie by exercising I tend to be aware of the versions of myself where I am fit. So that even though there is infinite variations of myself out there my human limitations means I can only ever be aware of one at a time.

So essentially what I call my life is a consciousness constantly flicking though already existing version of all the permutations of my life and how I choose to lead my life decides how I will experience it and where I will end up.

This consciousness is not subject to time and also non local ie can be everywhere at once but the infinitesimal portion I define as myself is subject to time and constrained to be at only one place in space.

Add it all together and the cosmic spark or consciousness simultaneously experiences every possible experience and existence. So that everything which is possible , happens.

The purpose of our life as I see it is to remove the factors which create interference between us and this cosmic spark and reintegrate ourselves with our original nature.

[Northern Gnome]

I need to say on last thing regarding my post.

All I can say is that the experience happened, was it as I believe it to have been? I can't answer that as a human being because I'm too limited, too dense to see much further than beyond my own nose, everything I believe that I know has been no more than a reflection off of the mirror of my mind which is far from perfect.

Whether God, god, or collective consciousness exists into some kind of infinity doesn't matter all that much does it? If God doesn't exist then life is even more of a miracle and the universe is an awesome thing to have consciousness come into being able to see itself to the extent it has. I don't agree with the pain and suffering of so many, but I do have a choice to try to make things better. I just wish I would follow that wisdom. I haven't done so to much extent, squabling or fighting instead of choosing to try love.

[ 04. June 2003, 08:26: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[gomaos]

I don't believe in either but if someone proved to me the existence of demons I would automatically take it that God existed as well.

This is sort of the point I am trying to make;

yes there are supernatural beings, which I know from experience, but there is no god who cares about every single one of us. There is probably one or many very powerful entities out there, but they basically don't give a stuff about humans...

Like Auxin or whoever watching chemical reactions in a tank or a glass or whatever, but to them we're only toys or the like...

Okay, to hell with the word demon, my kids have made me watch to many "Buffy" series...

Devil is more appropriate: Incredibly powerful, yet not concerned about the welfare of others...

so finally we arrive at

GOD IS THE DEVIL...both are 2 sides of the same "force"

[ 04. June 2003, 12:55: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[Yeti101]

You tell them Gomaos!!

No amount of anecdotal evidence and testimonies of visions about God affect the logical inconsistency between the way the world is and the way that christian God is supposed to be (Omnipotent, Omniscient and Benevolent).

This proble does not have to mean god does not exist, it could mean our connception of him/her/them/it is incorrect. Therefore, one or more of the characteristices have to be modified or discarded. If god is understood to be of limited power or knowledge, or to be neutral rather than good, the problem evaporates. This I suspect is not a huge problem for most people here. It is a problem however for people (conventional christians) who want to maintain all three of the aforementioned attributes.

I'm willing to admit that god is all-powerful if christians are willing to admit that god is not just responsible for the nice fun things in life, but for the undeserved suffering and gross unfairness as well. (Which they will never do.)

[gomaos]

Yep, exactly, and not just the christians also muslims and whatever other sects there are:

If you worship god, you worship the devil at the same time!

[ramon]

GOD IS THE DEVIL...both are 2 sides of the same "force"

It couldn't be any other way if by definition God is omnipotent.

Personally I think it was better when people worshiped the different aspects of God like the Romans and the Hindu's.

I think I would get on well with someone who had a shrine built for Bacchus but would tend to be a bit wary of someone who worshiped Mars.

Not sure that the Romans tended to see their individual Gods are different aspects of the one but fairly sure that is how the Hindus see it.

[ 04. June 2003, 14:35: Message edited by: Ramon ]

[Auxin]

"I'm willing to admit that god is all-powerful if christians are willing to admit that god is not just responsible for the nice fun things in life, but for the undeserved suffering and gross unfairness as well. (Which they will never do.)"

Didnt you read the story about Job? 'God' intentionally made his life a living hell just to prove a point to Satan. In the first half of the bible 'God' constantly gives people diseases, makes them into salt, floods, locusts, mass genocide, etc.

"Personally I think it was better when people worshiped the different aspects of God like the Romans and the Hindu's."

Christians do that, they are trinitarian- they cut their god into three peices 'father' 'son' and 'holy ghost'. Its just that they keep Satan seperate that makes it look otherwise.