Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K,
Absolutely. Another way to phrase it is that it is completely pointless to 'seek' God without an openess to his existence.


What other 'supernatural' claims?


I don't think it has much to do with 'claims'. It is merely a tautology that dictates why people with a certain attitude develop a relationship with God and why people with other attitudes do not. And again (a quick disclaimer) this 'right' attitude has nothing to do with assuming God exists in the first place...it is merely an openess to the idea of God.


And thus a conundrum comes to light.

On one hand the Heavens Gate cult really does seem crazy. On the other you can't say that all people who are religious are crazy because you have no reason to. Christians are bus drivers, mathematicians, steel workers, soldiers, politicians. The average Christian pays bills, takes kids to soccer practice, votes, probably has a majority of the same views you do. So one option is to claim these people don't 'think critically' about some parts of their lives. However, there is no reason (other than supporting the atheistic bias) to think this from their behavior. It is a complete assumption.

The other option is that the Heavens Gate cult was crazy and that the average Christian is not delusional.


Yes. Note there is nothing 'implicitly' crazy with this. That is...we are not saying. 'That comet is a spaceship with little green men inside who are coming to pick us up!'


Unhappy with creation...no. Unhappy that certain people reject him...yes.

Yes.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Definitely another thread.

Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K

SOMMS:

That is not another way to phrase it. Saying that it is pointless to seek God without an openess to His existence in no way implies that one should indeed seek God. I could say that one should not seek leprechauns without an openess to their existence. That doesn't mean that I think people SHOULD seek leprechauns. Seeking leprechauns is still ridiculous.

Allah, Thor, Zeus, Brahma, Gaia, astrology, Johnathon Edwards etal., Heaven's Gate, the Bermuda Triangle, ESP, tea leaf readers, the Psychic Hotline, Satanism, vampires, ghosts, ouigi boards, tarot cards, out of body experiences, divining, faith healing, and Scientology among countless others.

And again this is the same explanation for why some people have a "relationship" with Allah and Vishnu. It's also the same explanation for why astrology and tarot cards "work" for some people and why some people can "communicate" with their dead loved ones through mediums. It says absolutely nothing about the liklihood of the supernatural claim and much more about the person making the claim.

Other common Christian behaviors that seem extremely unusual (but again, I never claimed either group was crazy).

1. Chanting and singing to an imaginary being.

2. Shunning people who have differing views of this imaginary being.

3. Frowning on marriage between people who have differing views on the imaginary being.

4. Trying to have kids make a pledge to an imaginary being every morning in school.

5. Shunning people who hurt nobody, but behave in a way that some imaginary being doesn't like.

6. Avoiding natural human endeavors like sex in order to serve an imaginary being.

7. Stating a willingness to die to defend the word of an imaginary being.

You have to understand that your God is as imaginary to me as the Heaven's Gate aliens are to you (and me). The claims are just as absurd. The only real difference I see is that the Heaven's Gate people showed the ultimate faith in that they sacrificed their lives for what they believed. Are you saying that you wouldn't die to defend the Gospel?

I think the problem is that you can see the outlandishness of the claims of others, but not your own. Both claims are absolutely ridiculous when judged with empirical evidence. Neither claim has any basis other than personal evidence which makes the two identical from an outsider's perspective.

Six of one - half a dozen of the other. We're still dealing with an imaginary being. And there is no reason to believe we are dealing with anything other than an imaginary being except for some people's personal experience - which does not separate it in the slightest from the Beliefs of the Heaven's Gate cult.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: K ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philosoft,
I think we totally agree on this point: It is impossible to seek X without some concept of X.

And you are correct, the English lexical symbol comprised by the letters 'g', 'o' and 'd' doesn't implicitly mean anything. No more than symbols 'cat', 'dog', 'blarg', 'foobar' or 'lfvcxkxkli'. This is not to say that we don't use these symbols to refer to concepts (like cat or dog or God) but that symbols are just labels.

One can't say that we have no concept of God. Indeed you are an athiest...a term that would be completely meaningless if mankind had no concept of God.


Are you saying we have no concept of God?


A bit. Thank you.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

TerryTryon,
...and thereby not call themselves 'atheists' (as they've no concept of what this means) although this is how you (not me) would label them. In truth, there is almost no one on the planet that does not have some kind of god concept.

Faith is a nebulous term and I don't know what it means to you. I can say this. You will never have to go 'I BELIEVE in God, I BELIEVE in God, I BELIEVE in God' and force yourself into thinking God exists. If this is what you mean by 'faith' then no...you won't have to do this.


Egads! This is not the case. I used to be an atheist myself and I was not stupid. I have the same level of intellegence now as I did then. If this is what you think I am saying this is completely wrong. I in no way am calling atheists stupid. In fact I am claiming the opposite. I am claiming that intellegence is orthogonal (not related one way or the other) but that *attitude* is not.

Finding God is more a function of how prideful you are (or aren't) than a matter of IQ.


This is exactly what I mean. Morever, this is exactly what the Bible says.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,

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Philosoft

I'm sure we all have concepts, whether any of them correspond to God is another matter. I am of the opinion that they don't, can't even, because of the alleged non-material nature of God.

No, as you have noted, we must have a concept of something. We are also remarkably adept at believing things that aren't true. So, given your assertion that we find what we openly seek, is it surprising the voices in believers' heads correspond to the concept they sought to begin with?

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Bumble,
Simply:
-being open to idea that God exists.
-being open to the ramifications of Gods existence.
-wanting a relationship with God...if he existed.

That's basically it.


Have the above attitude and seek.


Not entirely. You may want a relationship with George Lucas. And he may be completely open to having a relationship with you. Does this mean you have a relationship?

What would have to happen first?

See above.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


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Hobbs

I certainly said "yes" to all those when I was a born-again, Bible-believing evangelical Christian who believed I was in a relationship with God. I can even say "yes" to those now (on the assumption that inherent in the notion of "God" as you mean the term is that this being is indeed worthy of worship and having a relationship with), though my diligent attempts to know God better as best I could on what I sincerely believed to be his terms led me to conclude that he existed nowhere outside of my mind. So how do you deal with someone in my position?

SOMMS, are you:

- open to the possibility that God exists only subjectively, i.e. he exists, but does so nowhere outside his believers' minds.
- open to the ramifications of God's purely subjective existence.
- willing to alter your relationship with "God" if he exists only in your mind.

If not, then maybe your problem is that you won't allow yourself to see the real truth about God, you aren't open to understanding the true nature of God.

TerryTryon

SOMMS:

I do not find the word "faith" in the least nebulous or ambiguous. Indeed, I am perfectly content to use Paul's definition in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This definition (and paraphrases thereof) has never made me feel I was miscommunicating with those who use it, and have never, until now, heard anybody claim that faith had any other meaning in its religious usage. Faith is claiming that internal, nonsensual mental processes have substance and should be considered evidence.

Could you please show me chapter and verse, where god, prophet, or apostle claim that the acceptance such non-verifiable "evidence" is not necessary for god to substantiate his personage with revelation?

Also, by what evidence and logic do you conclude that 1) being simply open to the possibility of god's existence, 2) being willing to the accept moral obligation that his existence entails, and 3) actively seeking him is all that is sufficient and necessary for god to reveal himself?

The Bible demands more, all of christian dogma demands more, and millions of people claim to have met your minimal standards, yet god failed to appear. Your "what if" is simply irrelevant to both logic and christianity.

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K,

And again...I still agree with you. As I did with your last post and the one before that on this exact subject:

'Ones attitude towards X affects ones relationship with X' does not imply 'X doesn't exist' or 'X does exist'.


And yes...seeking leprechauns is ridiculous.

Other than the fact that I believe God exists and you do not...I'm not sure we actually disagree about anything.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


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Fiach

Originally posted by TerryTryon:

"I suppose there is a tiny minority of atheists who have never been exposed to the god-concept"

It used to be claimed that all babies are born Atheists. And they are such if you define it as merely an absence of belief in gods. However, your point is excellent. The newborn baby is definitely an unbeliever in God. But he/she also has no concept of God, toadstools, or anti-matter. So a baby cannot be an atheist witout a frame of reference for a god defintion. One must be indoctrinated or educated about some kind of God depending on which God their culture created.


Fiach: My approach is most logical and rational. But obviously not to Christianity. You claim that even if a person seeks God (Christian God), God may or may not reveal himself depending on his mood that day. Such bloody capriciousness! Is such a God deserving of worship? Fear I can understand, but respect or love of such a God I cannot. Christianity's gross irrationality is the major stumbling block for me to accept its daffy god with multiple personality disorder. If there is a God, and I am open to that, the real God bears no resemblence to the giant and emotionally unstable giant human, Joe Hovah, or the very irrational Jesus myth.

My hunch is that God is a non-conscious creator of the universe, a collection of elemental forces or the unified force that belches out universes periodically because that is its properties. It has no need for a human personality than a human needs a worm's personality. Consciousness and intelligence are merely animal behaviours fashioned by 3 billion years of evolution as survival traits. Consciousness/alertness and intelligence function to find food, find reproductive mates, and avoid predation. God has no need of food, no need to find a female mate unless he reproduces by budding (but does he need to reproduce?), and finally intelligence and alertness are critical for avoiding predators. I know of no Theophages (God eaters) out there.

Fiach