Your thoughts on God

[Doc Savage Fan]

Your brain is tricking you into believing something.

Atheists comprise only 2% of the world's population. Consider this possibility...perhaps it's actually your brain that's tricking you into not believing something.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Theism is declining, but very slowly. Those holding to a specific religion has declined more sharply in polls, but most of those seem to have shifted to generic theism not atheism or agnosticism.

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

 

[Paul98]

Atheists comprise only 2% of the world's population. Consider this possibility...perhaps it's actually your brain that's tricking you into not believing sometime.

LOL that makes no sense, all that is being asked for is evidence it is always telling when none can be presented. While on the other side science supports that the brain can be artificially stimulated to give you a "religious" experience. The reason for belief in god or religious beliefs for most has nothing to do with evidence or reality even though they say it does. Rather it has to do with making them feel good, this can be for many reasons.

 

[Retro Rob]

LOL that makes no sense, all that is being asked for is evidence it is always telling when none can be presented. While on the other side science supports that the brain can be artificially stimulated to give you a "religious" experience. The reason for belief in god or religious beliefs for most has nothing to do with evidence or reality even though they say it does. Rather it has to do with making them feel good, this can be for many reasons.

I've been waiting to see you link something peer-reviewed and verified to support your conclusion concerning religious experiences.

Otherwise, your position is dismissed and sheer myth, which it probably is.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

LOL that makes no sense, all that is being asked for is evidence it is always telling when none can be presented. While on the other side science supports that the brain can be artificially stimulated to give you a "religious" experience. The reason for belief in god or religious beliefs for most has nothing to do with evidence or reality even though they say it does. Rather it has to do with making them feel good, this can be for many reasons.

All I asked was for you to consider was the possibility that you may be wrong...and you respond by saying that possibility makes no sense. The real irony here is that you think you're being completely rational and find the distinct possibility that you may be wrong as laughable. Think about it for a while and consider why someone like me might find your response to be quite fitting.

 

[dphantom]

I try to stay out of these as I agree with another poster earlier about how religous arguments raely ever stay a discussion but devolve into what this one has become. Still, just to throw in a bit of argument for the God exists side.

St Anselm
The idea of God as the Infinite means the greatest Being that can be thought of, but unless actual existence outside the mind is included in this idea, God would not be the greatest conceivable Being since a Being that exists both in the mind as an object of thought, and outside the mind or objectively, would be greater than a Being that exists in the mind only; therefore God exists not only in the mind but outside of it.

Descartes
Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea of a thing must be predicated of that thing; but a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect Being contains the notion of actual existence; therefore since we have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being such a Being must really exist.

Leibniz
God is at least possible since the concept of Him as the Infinite implies no contradiction; but if He is possible He must exist because the concept of Him involves existence.

there are certainly many more arguments that could be raised. And the God does nto exist crowd has their own arguments. My point here is that there is reasoned discourse on each side by smarter people than onyone here ever could hope to be.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I've been waiting to see you link something peer-reviewed and verified to support your conclusion concerning religious experiences.

Otherwise, your position is dismissed and sheer myth, which it probably is.

The "God Spot" has been disproven. Perhaps that is what he was referring to.

 

[Retro Rob]

The "God Spot" has been disproven. Perhaps that is what he was referring to.

Don't think I've heard of the God Spot before.

 

[Paul98]

All I asked was for you to consider was the possibility that you may be wrong...and you respond by saying that possibility makes no sense. The real irony here is that you think you're being completely rational and find the distinct possibility that you may be wrong as laughable. Think about it for a while and consider why someone like me might find your response to be quite fitting.

This has nothing to do with being right or wrong, it's simply asking for evidence to be presented. I would love to see evidence that one of these god's exists. What your brain sees MIGHT be real, but there is no evidence of that. Rather there is evidence that you are being tricked by your brain to believe in something that isn't real. Heck just look at how stupid easy it is to trick the brain. You try to make sense of the world around you, your brain does many tricks to link these things together. Such as if what you see and hear don't in reality line up, your brain will make it so that what you see and hear actually do line up. Your brain can actually make you see or hear something different than reality so that they line up. I find these sort of things quite interesting.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Don't think I've heard of the God Spot before.

Here's a relatively decent article that summarizes current research regarding God and the human brain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm

 

[Moonbeam]

Atheists comprise only 2% of the world's population. Consider this possibility...perhaps it's actually your brain that's tricking you into not believing sometime.

Hehehehe

Imagine a brain defect that would demand to know the effects of the red pill before they took it, evidence, not only that it would cure their defect but that the defective would be see they had been defective and were glad to be defect free. That would be something like putting the pill before the change in consciousness, or having muscles before exercise, knowledge before study, psychic death of the ego before dying, etc. In what universe could anybody see the possibility of logic in the absence of cause and effect.

Gosh, that would mean that the ego would never need to practice abnegation via modesty, humility, generosity, etc etc etc and all the other good things that religions call us to do in His name. That would mean we would never know what it is to have an ego so small it can pass through the eye of a needle out onto that highway where sinners, the bottomed out and the meek can get obliterated by the Mack truck called Grace. There would be, in such a world, no need of redemption by faith in miraculous.

Good grief! I can understand the temptation to look a gift horse in the mouth, but for the love on proof, do these atheists really need to put their hand up it's ass too?

When will the scientific mind understand that there is no science that doesn't affect or include the observer. The observer is changed by what he sees and that changes what he then can see. Nobody can know what he can't observe to be true. The eye cannot see itself. The eye can only know that it exists via inference. It can see itself in the mirror. But the knowledge, science, is not the knowledge that the eye exists, but the act of seeing. One can't know oneself by taking a step back from being. Science reveals the facts of being but religion job is to make our own being happen. That can't be done unless the observer and the observed are one. And that's what happens when you love.

 

[Retro Rob]

Here's a relatively decent article that summarizes current research regarding God and the human brain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091223.htm

Ok...so let me get this straight, was this study conducted to someone prove that God is just a malfunction of the brain?

I'm sorry, but my reading comprehension skills suck today...

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

This has nothing to do with being right or wrong, it's simply asking for evidence to be presented. I would love to see evidence that one of these god's exists. What your brain sees MIGHT be real, but there is no evidence of that. Rather there is evidence that you are being tricked by your brain to believe in something that isn't real. Heck just look at how stupid easy it is to trick the brain. You try to make sense of the world around you, your brain does many tricks to link these things together. Such as if what you see and hear don't in reality line up, your brain will make it so that what you see and hear actually do line up. Your brain can actually make you see or hear something different than reality so that they line up. I find these sort of things quite interesting.

This has everything to do with the possibility of being right or wrong...I'm talking about your apparent inability to acknowlege both of these distinct possibilities when it comes to you personally. The logic you use to prove you're infallable on this belief is based on the failure for anyone to provide evidence to your satisfaction..."simply asking for evidence to be presented". If that's your criteria for proving yourself "right" without possiblility of being wrong...then I ask you to simply present evidence there is no God....and until you do so, by your logic you're OK with me never admitting to the possibility that I might be wrong. Please do this or acknowledge that the very basis of your logic is completely irrational.

 

[alzan]

Religion bashing is a fixture here. It's not personal.

Seeing how atheists conduct themselves here, and over the entire internet for that matter, is a strong indicator of what it has become.

I don't think that the amount of atheists on the internet; much less on AT, represents significant enough percentage of atheists as a whole that you could draw that conclusion: just like you and Pray To Jesus and some other theists on AT are representative of theists as a whole.

 

[Retro Rob]

I don't think that the amount of atheists on the internet; much less on AT, represents significant enough percentage of atheists as a whole that you could draw that conclusion: just like you and Pray To Jesus and some other theists on AT are representative of theists as a whole.

Logical consistency says you're absolutely correct...but since atheists primarily gather on the internet while theists in church, I figure that spending time on the internet would give one a pretty good sample-size.

But I cannot argue with what you said.

 

[sandorski]

This has everything to do with the possibility of being right or wrong...I'm talking about your apparent inability to acknowlege both of these distinct possibilities when it comes to you personally. The logic you use to prove you're infallable on this belief is based on the failure for anyone to provide evidence to your satisfaction..."simply asking for evidence to be presented". If that's your criteria for proving yourself "right" without possiblility of being wrong...then I ask you to simply present evidence there is no God....and until you do so, by your logic you're OK with me never admitting to the possibility that I might be wrong. Please do this or acknowledge that the very basis of your logic is completely irrational.

Nonsensical question.

 

[Paul98]

This has everything to do with the possibility of being right or wrong...I'm talking about your apparent inability to acknowlege both of these distinct possibilities when it comes to you personally. The logic you use to prove you're infallable on this belief is based on the failure for anyone to provide evidence to your satisfaction..."simply asking for evidence to be presented". If that's your criteria for proving yourself "right" without possiblility of being wrong...then I ask you to simply present evidence there is no God....and until you do so, by your logic you're OK with me never admitting to the possibility that I might be wrong. Please do this or acknowledge that the very basis of your logic is completely irrational.

I don't even know what you are responding to, what am I going to be right or wrong about?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Ok...so let me get this straight, was this study conducted to someone prove that God is just a malfunction of the brain?

I'm sorry, but my reading comprehension skills suck today...

I wish I had more time to explain this and would normally do so. But frankly I previously tried to help you with evolution and came away wondering why I even bothered trying to help you understand things you didn't really want to understand. Your faith appears to be weak and you seem to be afraid to go where God and truth would lead you. Please know that I'm not trying to be mean here...just giving you an opinion.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I don't even know what you are responding to, what am I going to be right or wrong about?

Somebody shoot me. I give up.

 

[Retro Rob]

I wish I had more time to explain this and would normally do so. But frankly I previously tried to help you with evolution and came away wondering why I even bothered trying to help you understand things you didn't really want to understand.

This I agree with.

Your faith appears to be weak and you seem to be afraid to go where God and truth would lead you. Please know that I'm not trying to be mean here...just giving you an opinion.

...but this I don't understand.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

This I agree with.




...but this I don't understand.

It really shouldn't be that hard to understand. You effectively answered this question yourself when you said "This I agree with."

 

[Paul98]

Somebody shoot me. I give up.

You seemed to be reading things in my posts that weren't there. Are you saying that I am right or wrong about god being only an experience caused by the brain and not reality? I have already said I might be wrong, and that what they experience might be due to a "god". But I also said that there is no evidence of that, while there is evidence that the brain can and will make these experiences which we know to be not real. Thus I follow the evidence

 

[JD50]

I try to stay out of these as I agree with another poster earlier about how religous arguments raely ever stay a discussion but devolve into what this one has become. Still, just to throw in a bit of argument for the God exists side.

St Anselm
The idea of God as the Infinite means the greatest Being that can be thought of, but unless actual existence outside the mind is included in this idea, God would not be the greatest conceivable Being since a Being that exists both in the mind as an object of thought, and outside the mind or objectively, would be greater than a Being that exists in the mind only; therefore God exists not only in the mind but outside of it.

Descartes
Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea of a thing must be predicated of that thing; but a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect Being contains the notion of actual existence; therefore since we have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being such a Being must really exist.

Leibniz
God is at least possible since the concept of Him as the Infinite implies no contradiction; but if He is possible He must exist because the concept of Him involves existence.

there are certainly many more arguments that could be raised. And the God does nto exist crowd has their own arguments. My point here is that there is reasoned discourse on each side by smarter people than onyone here ever could hope to be.

None of that is evidence that god exists.

 

[Retro Rob]

It really shouldn't be that hard to understand. You effectively answered this question yourself when you said "This I agree with."

First off, I don't ask questions concerning evolution for my personal edification...there are massive amounts of information regarding it that I have access to. I ask so that way I can ascertain whether or not you (generic) understand it before claiming I don't.

Secondly, I've never, EVER heard of the God Spot and I read your link...so that's a genuine interest, believe it or not.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

You seemed to be reading things in my posts that weren't there. Are you saying that I am right or wrong about god being only an experience caused by the brain and not reality? I have already said I might be wrong, and that what they experience might be due to a "god". But I also said that there is no evidence of that, while there is evidence that the brain can and will make these experiences which we know to be not real. Thus I follow the evidence

You say that you follow the evidence. Let's see your evidence.