- This topic is empty.
- Posts
Stu,
I cannot lie, I have read your posts for who knows how long, and they have always humored me, challanged me, and also made me *examine* myself.
Also it has caused me to attempt to understand you, though if I simply use my common sense, how could I not?
Much what you say is common sense, and has caused me to think twice. You are right, the religion of Christianity is disgusting. And what Men have done with it is disgraceful.
The things that Men have done in God’s name are perverted, and shameful.
Its a sad truth.
Though with all that said, I still believe, not because of other people but from what I known and believe to be true. Whether you can understand that or not.
Either way I just wanted to say that.
I wanted to ask, why do you “think” that humans believe in God?
Or better yet, why does the question “Is there a God?” arise to every person?
Im curious to know your answer?
I am not stu, and I am anxious to see his reply, but you said anyone could chime in.
I think that gods were originally created by man to give him answers to questions that he didn't understand.
What is lightning? Of course god threw his fiery spear down to earth.
What is thunder, it is god roaring angrily. Those kinds of things.
As these questions have been answered by science, modern man still keeps God around for many reasons.
1. Fear of death and the wish for an afterlife.
2. Comfort when grieving the death of loved ones. Again believing that they are in a better place and you will see them again.
3. The need to think that someone stronger than them, a father figure, is watching out for them.
4. Because they have been raised and told to believe in God by people that they respected and trusted to tell them the truth. You will notice that the particular god that a person believes in is a result of where that person was raised.This list could go on and on but I am more intersted in hearing what stu has to say about it.
I admire your willingness to listen to another person's understanding of the whole religion issue.
Tim
The problem Tim is when you discount God, you are then forced to believe that everything came from nothing which is impossible, or from an eternal thing that has no life or intelligence, yet produced it anyway.
You need to take a few steps back because your myth idea is blinding you from the glaring obvious.
Im still going to wait for Stu to answer before I reply to anyone. Just want to have that clear before anyone starts thinking im ignoring them.
Quote (TimothyVI @ Oct. 17 2012,05:07) I am not stu, and I am anxious to see his reply, but you said anyone could chime in. I think that gods were originally created by man to give him answers to questions that he didn't understand.
What is lightning? Of course god threw his fiery spear down to earth.
What is thunder, it is god roaring angrily. Those kinds of things.
As these questions have been answered by science, modern man still keeps God around for many reasons.
1. Fear of death and the wish for an afterlife.
2. Comfort when grieving the death of loved ones. Again believing that they are in a better place and you will see them again.
3. The need to think that someone stronger than them, a father figure, is watching out for them.
4. Because they have been raised and told to believe in God by people that they respected and trusted to tell them the truth. You will notice that the particular god that a person believes in is a result of where that person was raised.This list could go on and on but I am more intersted in hearing what stu has to say about it.
I admire your willingness to listen to another person's understanding of the whole religion issue.
Tim
Hi Tim,What about the Scientific theory that states energy cannot be destroyed?
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.orgQuote (SimplyForgiven @ Oct. 16 2012,21:19) Stu, I cannot lie, I have read your posts for who knows how long, and they have always humored me, challanged me, and also made me *examine* myself.
Also it has caused me to attempt to understand you, though if I simply use my common sense, how could I not?
Much what you say is common sense, and has caused me to think twice. You are right, the religion of Christianity is disgusting. And what Men have done with it is disgraceful.
The things that Men have done in God's name are perverted, and shameful.
Its a sad truth.
Though with all that said, I still believe, not because of other people but from what I known and believe to be true. Whether you can understand that or not.
Either way I just wanted to say that.
I wanted to ask, why do you “think” that humans believe in God?
Or better yet, why does the question “Is there a God?” arise to every person?
Im curious to know your answer?
Well, flattery will get you everywhere!I'd have to acknowledge Tim's list. I became a fan of #3, the Freudian substitute father idea a few years ago.
Richard Dawkins's ideas of the susceptibility of the human brain, the fact that human behaviours derive from an evolutionary advantages, and his concept of the meme appeal to me.
Generally we believe in what our parents tell us pretty much without question up to the age of 5. This would probably explain why you are a christian and not a hindu or muslim, or at least why christianity is the overwhelming majority belief system in your country.
The human brain is a pattern-seeking machine; without this habit it would be difficult for our ancestors living on the African Savannah to have worked together to find food, and it would have been especially difficult to avoid predation by sabre-tooth tigers. It's better to think there is a tiger there than not. We see patterns where no pattern really exists, and we are notoriously poor at estimating probability, failing to understand how coincidence works. That means we see common experiences as forming part of some wider grand scheme, when it shouldn't lead to that idea at all.
There is an evolutionary advantage for a tribe in having members who are held in fear of a higher power, which can be used as a threat by a leader to encourage conformity. Bacteria that have adapted to live in symbiotic mats will kill cells that are unable to make the glue that binds the mat together. Churches are machines for punishing humans who look like they won't make the kind of social glue expected by that church.
Humans are seduced by the illusion of design: it is so much a feature of our world that humans assert their intent by designing stuff, but we also see things with “complexity” as designed, when they are not. The seduction of apparent design stems in part from ignorance. If you don't know how Darwin's explanation works then you are more likely to be satisfied with wondering and misattributing rather than actually knowing how things happened. Douglas Adams summed it up well when he said that wondering if the universe is fine-tuned for you is like a puddle wondering why it fits its hole so well.
Christianity is a meme that is transmitted to susceptible brains by platitude. The word “eternity”, to take one of many examples, doesn't actually mean anything universal. It sounds grand but you can't pin it down to really mean anything. I think it's a Woody Allen quote 'Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.' That really shows up what a meaningless word eternity is. Is that word used to describe some quality of the afterlife? This is an appeal to wishful thinking.
Now, consider other platitudes like “christ”, “god”, “sin”, “salvation”. What do the words mean? Nothing! Platitudes are defined in terms of other platitudes in a way that is meant to deceive people into thinking they should see the words as meaningful, and you know from the talk of scientologists that humans can really come to genuinely believe that their platitudes actually refer to something real.
Consider for example statements like 'God is the eternal being', or 'Christ offers salvation from your sins'. It sounds from they way it is said with conviction that these are things which should be believed to be meaningful, but what we actually have are platitudes defined in terms of other platitudes.
So I think the answers to your questions are complex and each has several components. An interesting question might be why don't people ask what gods are? Wouldn't it be that for most of our history as a species people would have asked whether there are gods according to the local polytheistic beliefs? Is it that we all know what a god is supposed to be, or is there a cultural reflex of a god gene operating: some feeling of the numinous planted by natural selection for our tribal good? Have we got to the point now where in a global society this tribal belief in Angry Sky Beings is a liability, and is being selected out of the population, or perhaps it is the meme against which people are building immunity, from science and elsewhere?
I have to say, I don't know what humans really believe when they say they have a god belief, and I don't think the question “Is there a god?” asks anything meaningful. I think there are many reasons why humans would use this language, even if there is nothing real about any of it.
Thanks for asking!
Stuart
Quote (Ed J @ Oct. 17 2012,10:10) Quote (TimothyVI @ Oct. 17 2012,05:07) I am not stu, and I am anxious to see his reply, but you said anyone could chime in. I think that gods were originally created by man to give him answers to questions that he didn't understand.
What is lightning? Of course god threw his fiery spear down to earth.
What is thunder, it is god roaring angrily. Those kinds of things.
As these questions have been answered by science, modern man still keeps God around for many reasons.
1. Fear of death and the wish for an afterlife.
2. Comfort when grieving the death of loved ones. Again believing that they are in a better place and you will see them again.
3. The need to think that someone stronger than them, a father figure, is watching out for them.
4. Because they have been raised and told to believe in God by people that they respected and trusted to tell them the truth. You will notice that the particular god that a person believes in is a result of where that person was raised.This list could go on and on but I am more intersted in hearing what stu has to say about it.
I admire your willingness to listen to another person's understanding of the whole religion issue.
Tim
Hi Tim,What about the Scientific theory that states energy cannot be destroyed?
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org
Hi Ed,
I don't understand what that has to do with this thread.Tim
Quote (TimothyVI @ Oct. 20 2012,03:57) Quote (Ed J @ Oct. 17 2012,10:10) Hi Tim, What about the Scientific theory that states energy cannot be destroyed?
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org
Hi Ed,I don't understand what that has to do with this thread.
Tim
No answer, huh?I have a personal relationship with God. I became consciously aware of Gods presence after a profound spiritual awaking 27 years ago.
If the God of my experience is simply a creation of my imagination then it is my imagination that produces a higher wisdom and greater spiritual values then my conscious mind.
Christianity is a religion about Jesus, it's not the religion of Jesus.
The Christian church is merely a “social organization” that houses the religion about Jesus.[/I]
It's evolution that thinks there is a God and searched for it.
Colter
“I wanted to ask, why do you “think” that humans believe in God?”
I think MOST humans believe in god for the same reason that children grow up believing in Santa Claus–they believe their parents, find the belief comforting, emotionally supportive. And of course I would think he would say that humans are genetically programmed to find patterns (whether the patterns are real or not), and they tend to infuse patterns with meaning, and agenticity.
Some believe it has to do with errors in thinking and how throughout history, it has been better to make a False positive error over a false negative. (Mistaking lay thinking the rustling brush is caused by a tiger is better than mistaking it for wind when it is a tiger). Hence, the ancestors that made the safer mistake became our parents, and the other ones were eaten by tigers. So, people have a tendency towards belief, as if it is our default.
That's how Dr house explained it.
P=cT1<cT2
“Or better yet, why does the question “Is there a God?” arise to every person?”
This question occurs to every person who was raised with parents who believed in god.
I do not think this question occurs to much of the world: the Muslim, communist, type countries, I don't think it occurs to them to ask this question.
Quote (t8 @ Oct. 17 2012,09:10) The problem Tim is when you discount God, you are then forced to believe that everything came from nothing which is impossible, or from an eternal thing that has no life or intelligence, yet produced it anyway. You need to take a few steps back because your myth idea is blinding you from the glaring obvious.
T8, regardless of god or no god, Tim's response seems fairly accurate. Those are the reasons that most people believe in god.Patternicity=type 1 error < type 2 error.
A person has greater patternicity (tendency to see patterns, whether real or not) if they lean towards making type 2 errors (false positive) rather than type 1 errors (false negative)
You Ed, abound in patternicity. Your ability to see patterns where others see only numbers is quite high. You, have a tendency to lean towards type 2 errors, false positives, seeing patterns where none exist.
This suggests you have higher than normal levels of dopamine in your brain. (And, if you listen to the science guys, you have gone past creativity and into madness)
Believe what you want.
Quote (david @ Oct. 20 2012,13:20) Patternicity=type 1 error < type 2 error. A person has greater patternicity (tendency to see patterns, whether real or not) if they lean towards making type 2 errors (false positive) rather than type 1 errors (false negative)
You Ed, abound in patternicity. Your ability to see patterns where others see only numbers is quite high. You, have a tendency to lean towards type 2 errors, false positives, seeing patterns where none exist.
This suggests you have higher than normal levels of dopamine in your brain. (And, if you listen to the science guys, you have gone past creativity and into madness)
Believe what you want.
Hi David,Thanks for giving us your 2¢.
However, if you were to actually study the data…God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.orgI gave you more than 2 cents. I've studied the …data. I love math. I'm basically a mathematical genius. I also study psychology and self deception. I've been studying you for 20 years, but not specifically you. If we simply put you on anti-dopamine drugs, these number patterns will mysteriously disappear. I've triple checked the math on that one. As you find comfort in the patterns you see (because you can see virtually whatever you want) you will not take the drugs, and so, continue in your delusions. ((I know “delusions” seems like a strong word, but strictly speaking, it is highly accurate))
If you don't believe me, there are ways of checking dopamine levels.
Quote (david @ Oct. 20 2012,13:53) Ed, I have missed you.
Hi David,Thanks! …I missed you too.
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.orgQuote (david @ Oct. 20 2012,13:52) I gave you more than 2 cents. I've studied the …data. I love math. I'm basically a mathematical genius. I also study psychology and self deception. I've been studying you for 20 years, but not specifically you. If we simply put you on anti-dopamine drugs, these number patterns will mysteriously disappear. I've triple checked the math on that one. As you find comfort in the patterns you see (because you can see virtually whatever you want) you will not take the drugs, and so, continue in your delusions. ((I know “delusions” seems like a strong word, but strictly speaking, it is highly accurate)) If you don't believe me, there are ways of checking dopamine levels.
Hi David,Fact#10. GOD is written 4473 (71 x 63)
times in the AKJV BibleThe “Divine”=63 “Deity”=63 of “The Bible”=63 is “YHVH”=63.
Fact #1. JEHOVAH is First mentioned (in singular form) in the “AKJV Bible” in Exodus 6:3.
Fact #2. “The Bible” has a value of 63 matching “YHVH”, which also has a value of 63.
Fact #3. The phonetic spelling of [אלהים] (God in Hebrew) is “ĔL-ō-Hêêm”, also is 63.
Fact #4. Ex 6:3 I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name
of God Almighty (בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי), but by my name JEHOVAH was I(YHVH) not known to them.
The English rendering of [בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי], which is “El Shaddia”, also has a Gematria value of 63.
Fact #5. The Greek word for “Testament” is [διαθήκη], which is spelled “diathéké” totals 63.
Fact #6. The Theomatic Encryption of [47+69+73 = 63 x 3] illustrates YHVH=63 as a Trinity.
Isaiah(47) Jehovah’s Salvation, Jeremiah(69) Jehovah is High, Ezekiel(73) EL(God) will strengthen.
Fact #7. At 6,300 feet above sea level, high in the mountains of Ararat, “The Ark”(63) came to rest.
Fact #8. “The Ark” of the covenant: The Greek word for covenant is [διαθήκη], spelled “diathéké”(63).
Fact #9. Jesus said we should address God as our “Father”: the Hebrew word לאביך, for Father, equals 63.
Fact #10. The total number of times GOD is written in the AKJV Bible is 4473. Theomatic encryption: 71 x 63.God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org
(LINK to the thread THAT PROVES GOD’s EXISTENCE)Quote (david @ Oct. 20 2012,13:52) I gave you more than 2 cents. I've studied the …data. I love math. I'm basically a mathematical genius. I also study psychology and self deception. I've been studying you for 20 years, but not specifically you. If we simply put you on anti-dopamine drugs, these number patterns will mysteriously disappear. I've triple checked the math on that one. As you find comfort in the patterns you see (because you can see virtually whatever you want) you will not take the drugs, and so, continue in your delusions. ((I know “delusions” seems like a strong word, but strictly speaking, it is highly accurate)) If you don't believe me, there are ways of checking dopamine levels.
Hi Wakeup,Will these “FACTS” then disappear?
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
