SlowTrainComing

It comes through honest, sincere prayer, through communocation with God Almighty.

Your religion believes in mystical happenings as well. Things becoming things out of nothingness with no human explanation is also a magical notion. It's just not the real one.

God is real. Imagined beings are not.

steamer

How did you, as an agnostic/atheist, accomplish honest and sincere prayer to a thing you must have thought was only imagined?

I know that the imagination is powerful thing and can cause people all sorts of feelings. If I imagine the loss of a loved one, I feel real pain. I have no doubt at all that what you imagine causes you real feelings of love or awe or whatnot, but those feelings you must admit prove nothing since we know that the imagination can cause us to feel things about people/situations that exist nowhere else but in our imaginations.

Is that what I believe? I believe nothing of the kind. I believe there are some things that we don't yet know. How to cure cancer, how the universe was formed and how to keep people from falling in love with things they only imagine are among the many things we do not yet know.


Again, please show me that god is something more than a thing imagined.

SlowTrainComing

God opened the door, and I chose to walk through it. Testimony and prayer from a close Christian friend began unexpectedly. God called me to do some academic research of the Word, and I realized that my problems with the Faith and the "contradictions" I thought I saw really aren't there. I realized that I didn't know everything and that I'm not equipped to in this life. Through prayer, the Holy Spirit entered me and convicted me of the One Truth.

This is the same silly circle in which I'm trapped in the "tough questions" thread. The claim is that life came to be from unconscious materials, yet there's no Creator and no "logical" manner in which those materials could have been initially created. One way or another, if you believe that the universe is cyclical and has no beginning or end, or if you believe that something created itself (and therefore has a conscious mind and is a CREATOR), you believe in magical beginnings.

I can't do it personally. Do some honest, sincere examination with the Holy Spirit and allow for Its conviction.

At this point, I need to say good night and God bless. Try it, brother - honest and sincere prayer to the Trinity.

question_it_all

And where does this communication take place? In your mind whilst you pray. If I'm wrong on this please correct me.

So your "proof" of this imagined god is found within that very same place you use to imagine, within your own mind! Surely you can see how this would be an unsatisfactory answer to us.


Leaving aside the argument of atheism being a "religion", one very important distinction you've failed to make here is that science (not our religion, but the tool we use to decipher the universe we live in) does not require an answer to everything "right now". If something is objectively observed by multiple observers to have popped into existence without a human explanation, science does not say "We don't know the answer therefore God did it". Instead we say "This requires further investigation". There is no magic, no burning bush and no 2000 year old book telling us what some old goat hearders thought this may be. We simply investigate until the answer is found.

Yet we equate god with imagined beings. Your assertion that god is real will do very little to convince people. Why should we believe you? Give us some credible evidence or even a rational explanation which doesn't take place solely in your mind (as with prayer) and we may take you more seriously. At present though all your argument amounts to is thus;

"God is real because I said so. I can prove it via conversations I have with Him within my own mind, but if you believe in Him like I do then you too can have these conversations"

To us this simply reads as; "I believe in God, my beliefs cause me delusions, if you adopt blind faith like I have then you too can share these delusions"

Incoherent fool

So in order for us to believe in God, we have to, uh, believe in God?

steamer

As an agnostic/atheist, wouldn't the door itself have been an imagined thing?

It sounds very much like your Christian friend convinced you and your newly formed mystical "conviction" is just you becoming convinced.

What were your arguments against belief in invisible magical beings? I think you must still possess them. By answering your weak arguments against belief in invisible magical beings you became convinced that they must exist. Can you share both your arguments against the belief in invisible magical beings and your friends arguments in favor of them? I am very curious what sort of weak arguments he must have had to overcome.

If you can accept that we don't yet know how to cure cancer then you have to accept that there are just some things we do not yet know. Postulating magical "answers" will do nothing to help cure Cancer nor will it help us to find out how life and the universe were formed. In no case is the answer "It's magic" acceptable to most adults except when it comes to religion.

If there is no beginning, then how can there be a magical beginning? It is simply unknown. If a god could logically always exist, why can't a universe (in some form, not necessarily this one) always exist?

I've done plenty of honest examination. My examination though excludes my imagination as a source of knowledge except of course for knowledge of how I'd feel if the things I imagined were real or true. I think the imagination is probably a pretty accurate indicator of how I'd feel about things even if those things exist nowhere else but in my imagination.

I cannot be honest and sincere while praying to a god I believe to exist only in the imaginations of men. It just isn't possible. Some self-deception would be an absolute necessity.

SlowTrainComing

Try opening yourself up honestly and see if He speaks to you. He will.

SlowTrainComing

Did you just psychoanalyze two people you've never met based on a half-dozen or so internet postings? Seriously? are you really qualified to speak for my Experience? Would you consider it fair, balanced, or "logical" if I were to start rattling through moments in your life, doubting your honesty and making up my own reasonings?

Why are you asking me questions that you know ahead of time you're going to scoff at? As soon as you're ready to humble yourself as a human being (full of human limitations), then ask these questions of God. Doesn't have to be in a crowded room, do it alone in your room if need be. But ask them. He will answer. Now, I'm certainly not suggesting you should be ashamed of such questions or discounting public worship in the slightest. But He speaks to us in different ways, at different times.

You keep operating under the premise that God is imagined, and that all of these shifts in mentality came from me. They didn't. They came from God.

God has a conscious mind. The universe does not.

Wrap your mind around the fact that you're scoffing at omnipresent Yahweh defying human logic, then supporting the idea of an omnipresent universe that defies human logic. Maybe that will give you humility.

At no point did I deceive myself, nor would you be. Humble yourself, brother. I pray that you do.

question_it_all

I think you're missing the point here STC. What Incoherent fool was saying is that according to your post, belief is a pre-requisite for belief. That won't convert many agnostics much less atheists.

Try viewing your same argument from the point of view of a non-believer. How would you react if we said to you, all that is required for you to recieve eternal bliss and salvation is to open yourself honestly to the Tooth Fairy and see if He speaks to you, coz we know He will. Or substitute Tooth Fairy with Allah, or Zeus, or any other figure you deem to be imaginary. Hopefully you can see the futility of asking non-believers to simply "believe" in order for them to believe.

Says you. But why should we believe that? Why should we believe god has a conscious mind when we can't accept that god exists outside of your imagination? Your posts are rife with unfounded assumptions which you ask us to believe simply because you do. Until you provide us with a reasonable argument for why we should believe I see no reason to view your opinions as anything other than self-fulfilling delusions

Incoherent fool

I did. He didn't. When I was a Christian, I was desperate for a sign. The fact that I never received one is just one of the many reasons why I was forced to give up my religious belief. Yes, forced. It wasn't my choice. I analyzed my beliefs, found them to have serious holes and came to the obvious conclusion. Occam's Razor is a powerful tool.

Tell me, if God is speaking to you, or giving you a sign, how do you know it's not pareidolia?