Quote: (01-26-2016 04:35 PM)Hoo Wrote:  

Now I see religion as the ultimate blue pill, and some here swallowed few too many.

I feel about Christian/Muslim god the same way you guys feel about Zeus or Thor.

Pretty much spot on for me - it's just not a very popular view here to take anymore so I don't bother getting into it.

Hoo hoo, dude just because we share DNa with chimp doesn't we mean we weren't designed, it just means the designer could've done it out of convenience and aesthetics.
The word of the bible is in over 3000 languages, any everywhere you find a copy. Doesn't matter if you never read the bible, in Christianity, God might give another chance. You don't burn, that is what Catholicism got it wrong, you just die and there is no hope of resurrection if you go to Gehenna.

Quote: (01-26-2016 08:27 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Quote: (01-26-2016 07:59 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

The fallacy of the Kalam cosmological argument is that it confuses the causality we observe in the universe with a cause outside of our universe. However, we only have observational evidence to support causality within our spacetime. Furthermore it just assumes that whatever caused the universe had to be the work of some being rather than a natural process, such as lots of universes that naturally bubble up out of hyperspace. Finally there's no proof that the universe began at all, all we know is that 13 billion years ago it was compressed into a singularity and then expanded.

Think about it more, the concept of nothingness obviously hasn't sunk in, nor the implications that follow. You're still stuck thinking inside the frame of reality and the physical universe. The fact is that time, space and causality presuppose themselves. They are a part of this emergent reality, they cannot be antecedent to the physical universe and causal factors of it.

Nothingness = no causality. No "hyperspace" from which universes "bubble up". There is literally nothing to bubble. There are no "natural processes" because there is no nature, nor even the most basic seeds from which natural processes could emerge. Nothing ever happens, there isn't even a blank space or darkness. Time does not pass. There is no energy or matter at all. There is no reality whatsoever.

As for saying that the universe had no beginning...you venture into faith-based territory more precarious than any theist. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of entropy. It puts a gaping hole in that theory. (briefly: https://carm.org/entropy-and-causality-u...-existence )

Alright, then if causality falls apart because time only originates in the big bang, you can't use causality to insist that God had to make the universe. Also, we don't know what lies beyond the range of our observational ability. We don't know how to look beyond our light-cone, or in any other orthogonal directions other than the three spatial dimensions we perceive. There could be a larger multiverse, Gods, or nothing for all we know. And you can't deduce your way into figuring it out, the Greeks spent centuries jerking themselves off trying to define reality just by thinking about things instead of observing them.

Maybe you're asking the wrong question.

Consider that "believe" may be the wrong word.

Hoo, almost everything you said is embarrassingly incorrect and displays an extremely shallow understanding of Christianity. You also fail to make coherent points, i.e. humans sharing 99% of DNA with chimpanzees as being evidence for evolution. DNA is simply the building block of living organisms. Is my house descended from the Sistine Chapel because both contain brick and mortar? Do you realize you share over 50% of your DNA with plants? Also, the fact that you've been here for over six months with only 30 posts and yet feel the need to dissect my post in this thread point by point is indicative of a major hostility toward Christianity. Your anger is very apparent. Your post reeks of the arrogance of the atheist who believes himself smarter than or somehow even morally superior to God (i.e. calling him a terrible communicator, as if the name Jesus Christ is somehow not far and away the most well known in history and in the present day, or saying Christians are rare in China when it's poised to become the most Christian country in the world.) You honestly don't have any idea what you're talking about. All I see is someone angrily lashing out at God and Christianity with incoherent and ignorant arguments, erroneous information and twisted half-truths.

Hoo strikes me as a typical eastern european Atheist, I've seen that type before.

Don't try and argue or reason with him, in his mind you're nothing short of an absolute primitive retard for being a believer.

On the matter of humans being insignificant when compared to the size and age of the universe,there was a thread where Lizard of Oz's sums up my thoughts when someone brings up the point of how humans are just a speck in existence and why it should make us feel small and why I disagree with that sentiment:

thread-46262...#pid988082

Quote: (03-26-2015 07:58 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

As far as the eye, and all the superb extensions of the eye that human ingenuity has invented, can see, the human being and its sentience and difference in kind from the mere dead matter that surrounds us, is the most interesting, important and significant thing there is.

Quote: (03-26-2015 09:37 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

All possible knowledge and experiences is between subject and object. Without the human being with it's capability to both develop the technology for us to discover what we know about the universe and just as importantly, to feel the wonder associated with such discoveries, this universe really would be just mere dead matter. Sure there might be a lot of it but it's still nothing. We should feel as much wonder if not more that something like consciousness exists as we do over the size of the universe. The latter is a qualitative difference from the rest of the universe, not just a mere quantitative difference.

I think a conscious mind that has only been aware for say a century is infinitely of more worth then a six billion year old piece of rock or star dust based on the reasoning shown in the quotes above. I think that should give a different perspective on the whole "duuuuuude the universe is so oooooooold and we're so smallll man" type of deep-isms you see so popular with the Neil Tyson Degrasse and Carl Sagan crowds.

For all the supposed "refutations" of the Kalam Cosmological Argument by "brilliant" internet atheists who barely understand it, it's still taken very seriously in philosophy of religion. Or so Quentin Smith says, and he's a very well-known atheist philosopher.

Comparing the Judeo-Christian God to Zeus and Thor is frankly ignorant. If you believe in the "bearded old man God," then you believe in something far closer to Zeus and Thor. If you believe in the God of classical theism, as I do, then Zeus and Thor are ontologically different altogether.

Quote: (01-25-2016 11:48 PM)Pride male Wrote:  

I am sure everybody has read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. What is this Providence that I hear Americans going about?

The God Delusion is pseudo-intellectual at best. Dawkins is a philosophical and historical hack, to put it nicely.

Also for what scorpion said here:

"Fifth, we can assume that since God's message is universal, it must speak equally to the hearts of everyone in the world. It would not be a message bound by particular ethnic practices or traditions. It would be something recognizably different, something that fundamentally appeals to human beings of every race and culture."

This morning I was thinking about the differences between Christianity and paganism and I wrote a quick post in another thread that dealt with this. At the risk of seeming self-absorbed by quoting myself again:

thread-53191...pid1202629

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I don't think it's any coincidence that in all forms of paganism and folk religion the gods and goddesses are way more anthropomorphic then what you find in Christianity. They basically are super powered human beings that represent the ideal type of person for whatever ethnic group the god is from. Thor, Odin and represent the ideal Germanic/Nordic man; Zeus and Apollo are representations of what Greek men aspire towards and so on. As I said, these guys are still one step above the modern , athiest, atom-nized man who has nothing to fight or die for (and actually see it as a virtue) since they see that there is value outside of their own selfish individualistic desires (namely in their tribe) but it's still not to the level of what you would find in Christianity.

Quote: (01-26-2016 10:18 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Hoo, almost everything you said is embarrassingly incorrect and displays an extremely shallow understanding of Christianity. You also fail to make coherent points, i.e. humans sharing 99% of DNA with chimpanzees as being evidence for evolution. DNA is simply the building block of living organisms. Is my house descended from the Sistine Chapel because both contain brick and mortar? Do you realize you share over 50% of your DNA with plants? Also, the fact that you've been here for over six months with only 30 posts and yet feel the need to dissect my post in this thread point by point is indicative of a major hostility toward Christianity. Your anger is very apparent. Your post reeks of the arrogance of the atheist who believes himself smarter than or somehow even morally superior to God (i.e. calling him a terrible communicator, as if the name Jesus Christ is somehow not far and away the most well known in history and in the present day, or saying Christians are rare in China when it's poised to become the most Christian country in the world.) You honestly don't have any idea what you're talking about. All I see is someone angrily lashing out at God and Christianity with incoherent and ignorant arguments, erroneous information and twisted half-truths.

Here is what you could get on google in less then a minute:



And yeah you are right, I think I am morally superior to Christian god, you are probably too. Now Hitler vs Christian God, that would've been more fair moral battle.

In all seriousness, I actually think modern western Christians are good people. They learned to ignore bad parts(majority) of the book and live by good parts. Few centuries ago they were worse then current Muslim extremists.

Probably with time Islam will evolve too.

Yes, evil, evil Christianity.

The same Christianity that developed universities, hospitals, and helped give rise to modern science. Evil Christianity.

Quote: (01-27-2016 12:39 AM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

Yes, evil, evil Christianity.

The same Christianity that developed universities, hospitals, and helped give rise to modern science. Evil Christianity.

Evil Christianity that, in its monasteries, preserved every book from out of the Roman epoch that it could lay its hands on, including any number of texts the Church deemed heretical. It still preserved each and every one. Were it not for the work of a long line of monks painstakingly copying down again and again classical texts as prior copies faded or succumbed to the elements, we would likely have had little to nothing of the works of Aristotle, Plato, or half a hundred Greek and Roman texts. As I said, these monks also copied out heretical texts: Epicureanism survived the classical era solely because of the monastery libraries, even though Epicureanism with its nihilistic philosophy has become one of the Church's biggest threats.

(Small trivia: you know the gesture of displaying dislike for someone by mock-sticking fingers down your throat? Monks, who had to obey vows of silence, used that gesture to indicate they needed to get a text that was deemed heretical or anathema to Christianity.)

As trendy as it is to rip on Christianity and religion because of the overly puritanical attitudes toward sex some of them have, I'd say the far-left is doing a lot more to repress and destroy masculinity than religion is.

Even though Christianity often emphasizes austerity and self-denial, it does so for both sexes - while the far-left and feminism on the other hand emphasizes puritanical self-denial for men, but hedonistic self-indulgence for women. It's just part of the cultural Marxist 'equality of outcome' agenda which attempts to 'reverse' every form of social stratification in a vein attempt to 'even out' the injustice.

There is no god. The sooner you take that band-aid off, the better.

Humanity will not be free until the last stone of the last church falls on the head of last priest.

Quote: (01-26-2016 10:54 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

Quote: (01-25-2016 11:48 PM)Pride male Wrote:  

I am sure everybody has read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. What is this Providence that I hear Americans going about?

The God Delusion is pseudo-intellectual at best. Dawkins is a philosophical and historical hack, to put it nicely.

It is, plus what Dawkins and the other New Atheists are hawking as "atheism" isn't even atheism, it's Scientism or Secular Humanism.

It's a secular "religion" that comes from the philosophy of positivism invented by Auguste Comte after the French Revolution - basically a religion which worships "science" as a replacement for God and derives from many of the same philosophical principles that inspired Marxism.

Even Comte himself called it a "religion of humanity", yet the New Atheists desperately claim it's "not a religion" even in spite of "atheist and secular humanist churches" popping up.

Basically this New Atheism hawked by Dawkins and company is just secular religion or cult for left-wing hipsters and feminists who don't believe in God but still want a quasi-religious community; so it's not about abolishing "religion", just about converting the members of mainstream religions to theirs.

Quote: (01-26-2016 12:58 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

Holy fuck, it's Hydrogonian! For those who do not know, Hydro was one of the first great posters on this forum. I remember reading his posts when I was still trying to figure out my game. Dunno why he bounced back in 2010 or so but damn it's been a long time man!

Hey Samseau, thanks for the introduction and compliment bro. I definitely miss our initial circle when we were all trying to figure things out. That was fun; and it has been a while. I think 4-5 years to be precise. Things have changed a lot in the Roosh-sphere since then.

Quote:Quote:

As for your answer on God; I like it. You basically state that a belief in God leads to good things, therefore you believe in God. The only problem I have with this is that different people's have shown to have different beliefs in God; how would one decide which God is best to believe in such a case?

I'm glad you articulated this, because it allows me to clear up anything that may have been less than crystal in what is inarguably a lot of ground in my previous post.

The first part of your statement is, to paraphrase: "a belief in God leads to good things, and therefore you (I) believe in God".

I would agree that I hold that a belief in the theological model, that I attempted to present, would lead to good things; especially in a larger community but also in small groups such as families. Some points that I would add to clarify:

The logical manner in which you characterize the justification my belief might be accurate in terms of how I came to it. Ie: "Things are perceived as bad, this model probably leads to good things, and therefore I believe in it". That's probably a true statement, if I'm being honest.

In a perfect world wherein I (and society) wasn't first secularized, this is not the manner that faith would be conveyed to an individual. Logic, in a manner of speaking, is a method that is opposite in nature to the theology that I presented – perhaps more so than any other theology since arguably the fourth century (Augustine of Hippo).

Augustine, arguably, first posited that the thesis that the certitude of consciousness about itself forms the basis of truth. Thus, he can be held to be the father of individualistic subjectivism that, when unleashed in full free of any weak theological constraints, turns social morality and civilization on its head.

It holds that is no ideal nor “objective truth”, let alone an ontological connection to it, outside of the mind of the individual. There is nothing that defines community except for any and all individual varying assertions about that community (and thus there is no definition).

This individual expression of truth is, at its core nature, derived from the justification and process of individual logic. Before Augistine’s innovation and its 1500 hundred+ year logical evolution to where we are today, truth was rooted in a divine archetype that was, by its nature, impervious to individual logic and fundemntally rooted in community faith.

My arrival at faith was an unnatural process of logical reverse engineering. If it had been instilled in the proper manner, I might restate your expression of my faith as: “The objective, unchanging, Ideal Essence (perfect Truth) that is a result of God’s first perfect creation is our primary purpose and nature as human beings. I do not know this from the logical observation and analysis of good, out of which comes a logical decision to believe (a posteriori knowledge), but because this knowledge and Perfect Truth is an inseperable dimension of my core identity and the foundation of any worldview of which I can relate to as true (a priori knowedge)”.

I state it this way because, for this type of theology to have any real effect, it cannot be subject to changing perception and it must be an inseperable element of identity. In other words, this theology must be a product of complete faith in who you are as an imperfect representation of the eternal divine template of your divine essence (this concept also extends to society as a whole), and as such there cannot exist elements of logical subjective revelation, interpretation, or conceptuialization of the Ideal or God that is rampant in the foundational theologies of almost all modern faiths (different forensic philosophers, who study how we got to where we are, sometimes disagree as to the actual starting point of the philosophical/theological corruption).

These beliefs would be woven into out myths, our psychology, and our identities as a whole in a similar manner in which things that we "instinctually know" (an expression of faith) today are.

I believe that this is how faith is supposed to work. I believe that that our current tendency toward a logic based subjective analysis of theology is a historical anomaly. It is a bottom up process (humans reaching toward the conceptualization of God) that corrupts the underying social software instead of God defining your nature before you even begin thinking (top down).

Though, this knowledge / faith also carries elements of direct participation with the divine, or mysticism, that is proof of a healthy ontology and that can still be found in Orthodox Catholicism in spite of its creation myth, almost, breaking the divine connection (ontology) to human kind in its rejection of the concept of a demiurge. Orthodox Catholics just barely, and late in their existence, were able to officially patch over the arguably troublesome creation theology held by most (but not all) Christian faiths and bridge the ontological gap between a pre-existent God and existent man. The creation myth in various religions, more or less, serves to put a theology on rails as it goes forth from that beginning. Thus, much of Christian theology is an attempt to deal with the almost universal acceptance of ex nihilo creation and how that effects God's relationship to the material Universe and human-kind.

Quote:Quote:

I think you underestimate the importance of scripture in establishing a common set of rules for believers to follow, and the miraculous nature of scripture surviving unbelievable odds to the present day. Keep in mind that all of our history was preserved through Christian monks after the fall of the Roman empire. Our conception of the past is therefore inextricably linked with Christ.

I actually wrote a reply to this that was erased when I submitted the post and it did not go through, but I will return to reply over the next few days (maybe tomorrow). In short, I agree with some caveats in regard to scripture. The theological concept of Christ, or the Logos, is hugely important to humankind.

This is a good discussion. Thanks, and it was great to make contact again...

It pains me to see the "yea i fucking love science too" crowd hammering home how the universe is so huge and we are so insignificant.
I don't know why they love bringing it up. It's a terrible way to look at life. I think they have it totally backwards.

In the biblical creation story, we're told that God merely spoke the universe into existence. He simply said "let it be" and it was. As effortlessly as a spoken word.
Yet in the same book we're told of how God took human form in Jesus and died the most excruciating death to save mankind.

How cherished must we be for the very creator of the universe to sacrifice Himself for our sake.

Quote: (01-27-2016 03:15 AM)Sooth Wrote:  

It pains me to see the "yea i fucking love science too" crowd hammering home how the universe is so huge and we are so insignificant.
I don't know why they love bringing it up. It's a terrible way to look at life. I think they have it totally backwards.

The size of the universe is staggering, but if understood it can make for a life-affirming, numinous experience.

Your body is at best about seven feet tall. You are standing on a rock that dwarfs your size. That rock rests on an ocean that dwarfs the rock's size. That ocean is on a globe that holds that ocean. That globe is held in place by gravitational forces and is miniscule compared to the size of the Sun. That Sun is tiny, and rests on the edge of a galaxy which is one of millions if not billions, floating in a void.

There is a force that brought all of this into being, one that is aware of the light that is your consciousness and your spirit.

It did so in less time than it takes for an atom to split, a force that brought forth everything from nothingness. That force is still with us, though we are dust resting on dust and to dust our bodies shall return. It is a force that permeates everything in existence, a force that any man can hear singing when he sees the Mona Lisa, smells a rose in bloom, touches his newborn son for the first time, listens to an orchestra swell with Bach's Mass in B Minor. It is the force that wrote Love thy neighbour as you would your self, the force that wrote I Am That I Am, the force that says A great man is a man who plants a tree knowing he will not be there to see that tree fully grown.

How can you see the beauty of a maze's pattern while you stand within it? Only when you are lifted above the maze -- or only when you reach the maze's end -- do we understand the order that commands what seems chaos while you stand inside it. You might solve the maze by a process of elimination -- turn left, and left, and left again until you find your way out -- but you can never see the whole as one construction while you stand clothed in mortal flesh.

This was the rebuke Jesus gave to Satan in answer to the most primal human need, hunger: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God."

He who understands this, even though he does not acknowledge the God of whom Jesus spoke, lifts an inch off the floor of the maze.

Quote: (01-27-2016 03:15 AM)Sooth Wrote:  

It pains me to see the "yea i fucking love science too" crowd hammering home how the universe is so huge and we are so insignificant.
I don't know why they love bringing it up. It's a terrible way to look at life. I think they have it totally backwards.

In the biblical creation story, we're told that God merely spoke the universe into existence. He simply said "let it be" and it was. As effortlessly as a spoken word.
Yet in the same book we're told of how God took human form in Jesus and died the most excruciating death to save mankind.

How cherished must we be for the very creator of the universe to sacrifice Himself for our sake.

Basically the Secular Humanist religion uses a lot of the same philosophical ideas as religious fundamentalism. In short it basically just trades "God" for science and claims that "science" is the only way to happiness.

Here's how it's doctrine eerily resembles the doctrine of Christian fundamentalists (ex. independent Baptists, etc):

----
*Humans are imperfect organisms that arose from a pool of primordial slime (and therefore only science and technology can make you happy)

"Humans are evil because they're born with the original sin, and only our church can save you from hell
----

*Your life is meaningless and has no design, therefore acquiring material happiness via science, medicine and technology is the only purpose in life

*You are born into sin and deserve hell, therefore only accepting Jesus and the teachings of our church can give you purpose in life

-----
*Before modern science and technology everyone's life was miserable, but now science has saved us and will give us happiness

*Before Jesus' sacrifice everyone was destined for hell, but now Jesus has saved us and will give us happiness

-----
*Scientific consensus is the only valid form of human knoweldge... because science says so

*The literal text of the Bible is the only valid form of human knowledge... because the Bible says so
----

Quote: (01-27-2016 12:59 AM)EDantes Wrote:  

Quote: (01-26-2016 10:54 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

Quote: (01-25-2016 11:48 PM)Pride male Wrote:  

I am sure everybody has read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. What is this Providence that I hear Americans going about?

The God Delusion is pseudo-intellectual at best. Dawkins is a philosophical and historical hack, to put it nicely.

It is, plus what Dawkins and the other New Atheists are hawking as "atheism" isn't even atheism, it's Scientism or Secular Humanism.

It's a secular "religion" that comes from the philosophy of positivism invented by Auguste Comte after the French Revolution - basically a religion which worships "science" as a replacement for God and derives from many of the same philosophical principles that inspired Marxism.

Even Comte himself called it a "religion of humanity", yet the New Atheists desperately claim it's "not a religion" even in spite of "atheist and secular humanist churches" popping up.

Basically this New Atheism hawked by Dawkins and company is just secular religion or cult for left-wing hipsters and feminists who don't believe in God but still want a quasi-religious community; so it's not about abolishing "religion", just about converting the members of mainstream religions to theirs.

A moment of hilarity was from after a year after I graduated from university my school decided to install a "humanist chaplain" who would have a spot among the Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, etc. ones. I thought of all the debates I've seen on the internet about how atheism is merely just the lack of belief of a god and here it was before my eyes, a secularist organization taking on the aspects of an organized religion. I have no idea what a humanist "chaplain" could offer that one of the many secular staff on campus couldn't. If you needed someone to talk to and desired non-religious counseling I have no idea why you would go to this guy as opposed to a counselor or psychiatrist from the college health center.

A good thing that came out of the whole organized atheist movement is for me to see first hand how many of the behaviors that have been associated with religions are really just human phenomenon that apply just to every human institution:

- Massive virtue signaling: religious people will attempt so show their peers have pious and moral they are. New atheists will typically instead try to emphasize their intelligence and scientific knowledge even if it's just merely pop scientific knowledge. There's also plenty of moral posturing in the same way you see with religious people only these atheists will be fighting to show how tolerant, open-minded, egalitarian, etc. they are.

- Sacred cows: Taboos and ideas that are so deeply ingrained into a person's moral framework that the person has trouble questioning them and understanding how they even came to possess them in the first place are typically associated with religions but the new atheist movement has shown that most people including non-religious/secular ones have their own too. Questions related to race and gender are a good example of this. The biggest unquestionable sacred cow I would say that modern people of our age (both religious and non-religious) would be the idea of equality and egalitarianism. I know for me personally the biggest mind shift I've had in the last few years (and perhaps in my entire adult life) is starting to question that particular concept. Another one would be Utopian-ism types of thinking which I will describe next.

- Utopian-ism: Christianity and other monotheistic religions have a linear and teleological view of human history where everything is working towards a certain ultimate end where we will be perfected. You see very similar strains of thought with a lot of the new atheist types only they place perfection within the material world rather then the next. In fact there's an example of this type of thought in one of the posts above with the rip off of the famous "Humanity will not be free until the neck of the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" quote. If only we could get rid of x and y and support a and b humanity will be free to march on to a glorious future where we have moon bases and there's no hunger or poverty or war and everyone will be free to have sex with anyone or any thing as much as they want.

It's also related to why so many of these new atheist types have at least a superficial fascination with science and technology even though the latter seems to be more emphasized. Something I've noticed is that they tend to have less of an interest in pure science but have more of an interest in applied science that has immediate use in the real world towards moving us towards that utopia or can at least amuse and provide novelty - hey guys look at this video of a robotic cat riding a hover board I saw on reddit or this portrait of Tesla painted entirely with glowing e-coli. I suspect that this is due the Utopian mentality I just described. They see technology as the means to build this secular Utopia.

Interesting comments, all. I think where I've ended up is that, while I see no evidence for a god, the possibility is so unknowable that I refuse to rule it out.

I think the main issue is, is there a God? I’m not sure we can ever definitely know but I believe in God, as in there’s a creator of the universe. Do I believe in a god who’s interested in what you eat or how or who you bang? No

I think all religions are man-made interpretations of how the people thought the universe worked and should be lived in based on the knowledge they had at the time.

Another issue is of what’s “good” and what’s “evil”? ISIS for example believe they’re doing good, most of the world think they’re evil…but everybody has their own perspective on this.

One thing that’s occurring now, which I guess we could call “evil” from one perspective (as a male heterosexual with strong family values) is the systematic destruction of long standing traditions being replaced with deviant behavior such as promotion of gay lifestyles, transgender rights, anti heterosexuality, promotion of single motherhood, downplaying of masculinity, anti femininity etc….I guess this alludes to the “Year Zero” mentality which RVF posters have mentioned, which is the destruction of all traditions and replacing them with deviancy.

It’s shameful for Western civilization that there’s almost nobody in power in most Western countries who would have the balls to say that “marriage = man + woman” nowadays.

The moral centre of the west has been declining over the last 50 years and "God" knows how low it will go…

Doesn't really matter.

God believes in you.

Quote: (01-27-2016 11:48 AM)The Father Wrote:  

Interesting comments, all. I think where I've ended up is that, while I see no evidence for a god, the possibility is so unknowable that I refuse to rule it out.

Agnosticism is a rational position, much more so than atheism in my opinion. I was an agnostic for a long time.

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And I've seen too many eerie things happen to not think there is some collective consciousness out there, some string we are pushing on. For example, did you ever suddenly wonder "Hey, I wonder whatever happened to my old friend Bob. Haven't thought of Bob in YEARS!" And then minutes later, Bob calls out of the blue :/ After years. There is some sort of super-consciousness we all occasionally tap into. Not sure what that means or implies about a deity or a higher collective consciousness beyond our mortal, individual consciousness. But it's just odd.

I've had at least two confirmed experiences, with the different individuals, along the lines of a shared psychic phenomenon. I had prior shared a traumatic experience with one of these individuals (we had a mutual deceased friend), and with the other we had had an intense personal connection (a girl - though not one that I had had sex with nor was going to). The former experience was intensely physical, shared, unmistakable, and confirmed in the moment as we were within ten feet of one another. Also, it involved the deceased friend, in a manner of speaking, and was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. The latter experience occurred across several states and was confirmed later.

Though, I can't hold these to be evidence of "God", the experiences were evidence enough for me toward a shared consciousness of sorts, or perhaps a communication channel that is accessible if enough love, emotion, trauma, etc. is shared between individuals. The one that involved the dead friend seemed to involve a third power, and that is how I always interpreted it. I've had other experiences, but these are the only ones that I am reasonably confident in terms of their nature; at least insofar as anyone can be. I'm not one to look for experiences like this, or to over-interpret them, but also I can't deny that these events occurred.