[The Father]

(01-27-2016 11:10 PM)hydrogonian Wrote:  

(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.

Those are exactly my experiences. I do not pretend they prove "God". They just prove that there are yet undiscovered realities. If you were born in the 3rd century, you'd look around at the moon and stars and tides and seasons and KNOW they were real....but you'd have no idea why. So you might make up a story to explain it. We see phenomena like what you and I have described above, we know it to be real, and we do not yet have the science to explain it. Well I won't make up a Church of a Flying Spaghetti Monster to explain it, but I do believe something exists, something meaningful and powerful, and I have no real idea about it's nature. That is simultaneously the most interesting, frustrating, and somewhat frightening thought of which I can conceive.