John A. Broussard

The parallels between Santa and god go way beyond this. The major element is comfort. Believing in Santa makes a child feel good. Believing in god makes the believer feel good.

That is by far the most significant feature of belief in a divine, omnibenevolent being. It's the main reason the concepts of Santa and god are perpetuated, generation after generation.

911

Some stuff I would like to discuss.

There are a couple of critical differences. One is that I am not joining anybody and I did not come to this position to join anybody.

Secondly I do not expect a million dollars reward.

Thirdly I did not ask you to join me.

Again this does not apply in my case because I do not claim to believe in God; I claim to have met God. I claim that God talks to me. I do not claim the ability to do miracles though.

If your friend tells you how you too can have OBE; I for one would be very interested to have one myself.

That particular experience I quoted left me "nothing." I was not expecting it; I did not ask for it and when it happened I was like: "Now what was that all about?"

You can say that I jumped to conclusion because there is no reason why the one prostrate on the floor was me and that it was God up on the flight of stairs sitting on the throne. You see in that particular incident; I could see only the legs as the top part including the face was out in space. The whole vision was simply floating in space. There was also no reason to call the chair God was sitting on, the throne.

I just knew.

Like the question : Are you sure that it is God who is talking to you?

I could be jumping to conclusions but you do not ask this sort of question when for example your husband or wife talks to you from another room; you just know it is them.

I can think of many alternative explainations. Why don't you find out for yourself?

I have shown you how simple it is (but maybe having Faith is not simple at all.) You too can have the same experiences that I have.

Unlike your OBE friends I tell you that you can. I told you how. I did not in any way threaten you by saying that you will go to hell. I did not make you any promises like you will go to heaven.

Can you blame religious leaders for making threats and empty promises? (They have to believe those threats and promises themselves or soon everybody will see through their devices.) Otherwise, nobody takes them seriously.

Freiheit

Actually, my OBE friends have told me that I can and how. I'm not aware of you telling me how to "meet God" though. Nor do I think you have given me any reason to believe that you have met God. When someone I know calls from another room I think that it is that person because it sounds like that person. I don't "just know." There are reasons why I think what I think. Also, if I found out that there were people running around that could impersonate the voices of those I know, I wouldn't just trust that it was them from hearing them without further evidence.

I know plenty of people who claim that they have knowledge when they don't, but they want to feel secure in their assertions, so when you ask them they say "I just know." Sometimes they assert this and are clearly wrong--and may even realize that they were just lying to themselves afterwards. I am not saying that this is the case with you, but I have no way to distinguish your claim from theirs.

You can "just know" and be wrong.

Nietzsche:
I think a major similarity with your situation and that of Kissing Hank's Ass is that in both situations someone is told that if they just go along with a ridiculous idea without evidence eventually they will get evidence--but the real evidence promised is totally out of reach and the "this world" evidence is entirely forced. As Jhuger says "they weren't just liars, they were bad liars."

So then there is nothing to conclude from it.

I think the most likely explanation is that this encounter was that of you with one of your archetypal psychological constructs in a dream time realm--whether this realm be internal or external I do not know.

If you claim to have met God, it sort of implies that you believe in God. If you didn't believe in God, you wouldn't say that it was God that you met. Kids have "met Santa." Does that mean that Santa is real? How is God talking to you any different than you talking to yourself and calling that "bouncing off point" of your mind God? Or how is it different from kids talking to Santa?

I don't see any particular benefit to such a being existing, anyway. Personally, I find the idea of Monotheism both empirically unfounded as well as philosophically ugly and morally abhorent. That is not to say that it isn't the case, though. I'd be willing to explore such a possibility. I consider much of what Stalin did morally abhorent, but that's all the more reason to learn about it and acknowledge it if it is the case.

911

What if God refused to give man the evidence that man demands?

We can say if we have no concrete evidence of God's existence; then God does not exists. There is no reason to speculate that God exists but refuses to give man the evidence. So that is that.

So we look at reality. While it does not prove that God exists we see that man needs God; a couple of billion people anyway. Simply saying "that is that" does not help and does not do anything for the couple of billion of people.

So we go back to:

What if God refused to give man the evidence that man demands?

We can say that if God does not give us concrete evidence; then there is no way that we can know what the evidence we have is of God or something else.

If we believe in God we attribute the evidence to God.
If we do not believe in God we attribute it to "something" else or to unknown.

If we attribute it to unknown we can try to find out what it is.
If we attribute it to God; we do not need to try to find out what it is.

We can attribute it to God for the time being until we can decide for sure what it is.

We can say that it is pointless to attribute it to God because God does not exists and it is better to attribute it to unknown until we find out exactly what it is.

We then ask how does one know that God does not exists and the answer is that there is no evidence that God exists.

We then come back to the question:

What if God does not want to provide man with the evidence?

John A. Broussard

It's not easy to make these distinctions.

There is (or was) a local character who used to walk the highways with a big sign saying, "Repent. God is on his way."

One day he showed up with a different sign saying, "I am God."

I don't know what happened to him eventually, but he seemed quite harmless, even in that last stage.

911

Wow his prediction came true? That is simply amazing.

Freiheit

Then your god would be an enemy of truth.

If Lucifer is the prince of lies, his father Jehovah is certainly the king.

But let's look through some of your statements:

Whose demanding evidence? I'm not demanding anything, I'm just judging based on the evidence that is available. There is no more reason to hypothesize your god than to hypothosize a purple hypo behind my head or the invisible pink unicorn or Hank or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

What if there isn't evidence of a being's existence? Then there is no reason to assume that the being exists. What if a being exists but intentionally makes it so that others won't know it? Well, then we would have no way of knowing, would we?

Why would we say that? Just because there is no evidence of a being's existence doesn't mean that it doesn't exist--it just means we have no reason to believe that it does exist.

It is really hard to have a dialogue with you if you are only interested in talking to yourself. Do you want to address points that I am making, or do you just want to make up arguments against your position and argue against them?

So we look at reality. While it does not prove that Santa exists we see that man needs Santa; millions of kids anyway. Simply saying "that is that" does not help and does not do anything for the millions of kids.

So we look at reality. While it does not prove that the earth is flat we see that man needs the earth to be flat; the majority of the population anyway. Simply saying "that is that" does not help and does not do anything for the majority of the population.

So we look at reality. While it does not prove that racism is good we see that man needs racism; countless people throughout history anyway. Simply saying "that is that" does not help and does not do anything for those countless people.

1. People don't need your god.
2. People don't believe in your god because they need your god.
3. People needing your god is irrelevant to whether or not your god exists.

Your god is Dead. Organized religion and Christianity in general are dying out in the West. God is an umbrella term for any number of different beliefs that different people hold. There are people that say they believe in God who don't really think about it--either philosophically or in their day to day life. They say they believe without really having any idea what the word means to them because they were told it is the case, but they haven't really thought about it and the idea is vestigial. And the word is vague enough that it could mean damn near anything.

There's a metaphor from a book called "Balance Point". They are talking to this Peruvian Shaman. He says that people in the industrial world are spiritually dead because they have become disconected from nature--both the Earth Mother and the Great Mystery that contains her. The one girl says "I learned spirituality was about being connected to God." He replies, "what you call God is the Great Mystery". He tells this story:

On this one beach there are countless grains of sand. One of them is very special. On it there have evolved very special microbs. They have evolved to the point were they have become self-aware. Some of their smartest have even begun to wonder why they exist. This question troubled them. Then one day one of them said "I know the answer. We are the smartest things that we know of, therefore we must be the smartest things that exist. We must exist because a very great microbe, like us, created us and everything else." The rest of them accepted this, because they could not think of anything better.

But this is ridiculous. The microbes have no idea the extent of existence. They are merely worshipping themselves by worshipping this "Great Microbe." It would be laughable if so many of them did not share this view. But what is more, it is dangerous. Because they worship themselves they are not looking at how they relate to and are interconnected with the rest of life. They think that they themselves are all that matters. They are spiritually dead because they are trying to experience spirituality through connecting with the Great Microbe--but we can only truly become spiritually healthy through connecting with things that actually exist. By worshipping themselves they have deadened themselves to life.

I see your god as being no better than the golden calf.

If we attribute it to the Invisible Pink Unicorn we do not need to try to find out what it is. Good job. Nothing is better than stopping thinking at any cost.

We can attribute it to The Invisible Pink Unicorn for the time being until we can decide for sure what it is.

We can say that it is pointless to attribute it to The Invisible Pink Unicorn because The Invisible Pink Unicorn does not exist and it is better to attribute it to the unknown until we find out exactly what it is.

We don't know that the Invisible Pink Unicorn or your god don't exist. They might. But why would we assume something absurd just so that we don't have to think about it?

And I thought you were going to tell me how to meet your god. What happened to that? Does it involve taking drugs? Because I'm not really into that.

Read this essay. And really do it, cause I'm going to quiz you on it:
How the Concept of the Infinite is Derived from Finite Experiences

What prediction do you think came true and how is it amazing?

How does it even matter whether your god exists or not? Is this really in any way existentially relevant?

So, just to confirm your Kissing Hank's Ass status: you're not saying that Hank is going to kick the shit out of me for not believing or that I'll get a million dollars for kissing Hank's Ass, but if I have Faith I might get to meet Hank and kiss his ass? What would you say to someone who came up to your door and told you the about Kissing Hank's Ass that way?

I don't blame anyone. I don't blame Hitler. I think everyone does what they think is best--but when I see something that I think is evil I do my best to oppose it.

Some people are taken seriously without threats and empty promises. Could that be because such individuals, unlike your religious leaders, provide things that are actually real and not a lie?

911

about the prediction coming true.. (a couple of posts above yours?)

The guy who carried a sign that says "god is on the way;" disappeared for a while and then carried another sign that says: I am god.

Maybe you have put some people on the ignore list and do not see their posts?

Will be responding to your post proper...

John A. Broussard

"1. People don't need your god."

Some people do. It can be very comforting to have a voice in one's head.


"2. People don't believe in your god because they need your god."

I think you left out a negative here.


3. People needing your god is irrelevant to whether or not your god exists.

Definitely true. Again, some people derive comfort not only from believing in god but derive even more comfort from having other people believe in that god.

911

So bottom line some people know more about some people than some people.