It's a question you can't answer, so you run away, as usual.
What's the difference between YOUR idea of God and an alien overlord who wants to cook you?
Evidence that God is real
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
What's the difference between YOUR idea of God and an alien overlord who wants to cook you?
I thought it was obvious : the whole "alien overlord" thing and their apparent dietary prerequisites.
It isn't obvious. Give us an honest answer for a change. How do you know your God isn't just an alien who wants you for food? How do you tell the difference between Heaven and a gingerbread house?
Honest answers require honest questions.
It is an honest question: How do you know? If there was an alien overlord who wanted to eat you or probe you or do whatever with you for his own satisfaction, how would you differentiate him from your God? What criteria would you use?
Probably the first step would be you explaining what you are working with to come to such conclusions. In the meantime, it sounds better as a Trump joke.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is virtually the same tactic Jan tried. 'Find em yourself'.
If the pick is left to the skeptic, the apologist can always say 'well that's a lousy example', thus continuing to dodge commitment.
I suspect that Jan/Musika do not want to pick their favorite claim and then defend it as an exemplar of excellent evidence. It would put their personal credibility squarely on the line. It would become a direct critique of their beliefs, rather than an academic discussion of hypotheticals.
Musika: have the courage of your convictions: pick one - your favorite. Then we are all discussing the same thing.
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
And so it goes...
Ask for evidence .... none is presented .... ever.
Put up or shut up comes to mind.
Anyways why do we waste time calling for evidence when they can be none and further those who hint that they have evidence are always unable to supply evidence.
We may as well talk about bigfoot at least that mob offer a few videos as indicated even the hopless flatearthers offer at least...something.
They, flatearthers, have Earth under their feet for a start, so some sort of evidence, whereas theists simply have nothing absolutely nothing more than opinions of ancient superstitious uneducated folk ... theist can not even form their own opinion and are totally reliant upon the words of others...well words are nice but when all the campfire talk is finished the Sun comes up the next day reality gives meaning to the day and the gods hide offerring no indication they were ever more than a made up camp fire yarn.
So Musika will engage and chat but will never offer what is not available.
Read the scripture...
The scripture is just some fool like Musika rambling years ago with no more evidence available to him than available to Musika.
All he can offer is...well more of the same evasion...
Tiresome.
Such a waste of what may have been an expensive education.
Alex
Ask for evidence .... none is presented .... ever.
Put up or shut up comes to mind.
Anyways why do we waste time calling for evidence when they can be none and further those who hint that they have evidence are always unable to supply evidence.
We may as well talk about bigfoot at least that mob offer a few videos as indicated even the hopless flatearthers offer at least...something.
They, flatearthers, have Earth under their feet for a start, so some sort of evidence, whereas theists simply have nothing absolutely nothing more than opinions of ancient superstitious uneducated folk ... theist can not even form their own opinion and are totally reliant upon the words of others...well words are nice but when all the campfire talk is finished the Sun comes up the next day reality gives meaning to the day and the gods hide offerring no indication they were ever more than a made up camp fire yarn.
So Musika will engage and chat but will never offer what is not available.
Read the scripture...
The scripture is just some fool like Musika rambling years ago with no more evidence available to him than available to Musika.
All he can offer is...well more of the same evasion...
Tiresome.
Such a waste of what may have been an expensive education.
Alex
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
The discussion is here. Have the courage of your convictions. You present something. Here.
That way, we won't have 50 posts of 'well, I wasn't talking about that one.'
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
What does the Noble Eightfold Path have to do with knowing whether or not God exists? It's an elaboration of early Buddhism's fourth Noble Truth, the path to the elimination of dukkha.
Regarding the Bible, it's kind of striking how epistemology never seems to be mentioned. It's as if the ancient Hebrews were oblivious to the problems of justifying their theistic metaphysics. They just seem to have assumed the objective truth of all of their traditional beliefs. Apparently God was simply a given with them. Islamic revelation illustrates the same defects.
The Christians and the Muslims only started addressing the epistemological issues we are discussing here after coming in contact with the Greek philosophical traditions, and then only by employing Greek terms and methods in their own philosophical theology and kalam.
That's begging the question, isn't it? We still don't know whether God exists. If one must believe (for no reason) that he does exist and that he really does "define himself" in "scripture", in order to "know" that he exists, we would seem to be spinning in a circle. If our assumption that God exists and that Scripture reveals him is wrong, then it's just garbage-in, garbage-out.
Circular reasoning or nothing? That looks like an awfully defeatist admission from a theist.
I'll agree that one might arguably have to approach things in the way that you suggest if one was seeking salvation, or whatever the religious goal is supposed to be. Obviously one has believe in God in order to qualify as a Christian or a Muslim in the first place. The point then wouldn't be to determine whether or not God exists, that indeed would be a given, but to get right with God, whatever that means in whatever theological system it happens to be.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
So how did having faith and believing I could fly off the cliff provide any truth?
Seems like I killed myself because of my faith. Which is a twist on religion which frequently kills believers in other regions for having a different belief
Again, the point is to validate the belief.
It provides a framework of behaviour/attitude or "how one has to be" in order to render tangible access to the knowledge of Buddhism. Granted the notion of melding Buddhism to God is not completely appropriate, but, as a discipline, it establishes similar codes of behaviour that are deemed essential to knowing, above and beyond what one can dredge up in the name of history, philosophy, etc.
I thought it would be good to throw in since many here cannot seem to function in any discussion involving the word "God".
I'm not sure I would agree .... the kingdom of God and the eye of a needle and all that. It's more the case that greek influence in latter years helped (or at least, attempted to) smooth out ontological issues.
The definitions also bring an appeal to reason. Of course that appeal is not absolute, since logic alone never brings an end to all arguments. In fact you could even say that the inherent limitations of logic is what may drive an individual to cease dealing with the phenomenon as a dry historical or philosophical subject and start dealing with it as an instructive means to understand something.
Just like the Andaman Islanders, with their political sovereignty being contextualized by powers vastly greater than their own, there is an aspect to God that is completely beyond our powers to verify independently (or to say it more correctly, there is an aspect of our current situation that is tremendously besieged by ignorance and illusion). At the end of the day, the Andaman Islanders could only hope to understand the sovereignty they are under according to the desire and means given by the Indian government. Our situation is much the same.
The act of knowing God and "getting right" with God are one and the same.
In a sense, it's much like knowing one's own self exists (of Descartes fame). There is no scope of arriving at that point ("I am") without also bringing concomitant actions (what would it mean to know one's own self and to not "think"?). As we know ourselves better or more completely, our activities also fall better in to line. This is not so much our choice, but rather the natural consequence of knowledge and action being inseparable.
It's characterized by behaviour, once again, that is discussed in scripture.
That depends entirely on what you are deeming to be the human condition and whether there is scope for it to be less conditioned.
If God explaining Himself and the means to know Him, why isn't that justifiable? Are there some special rules to this that I must disregard everything and run around like a mad artist, sticking my signature on everything?
(Doing aside with your notion of exactly who are the "psychologically primed" individuals ....)
If one was strictly seeking obedience, your scenario is valid. If one was strictly seeking a natural assimilation born of affection, your scenario is not valid.
So if it works it is the truth?
If it doesn't work suffer the consequences?
And if it works sometimes but not others?
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
I hope you are well.
It must be difficult for folk like Jan and Musica having studied religion in depth and to such an involvement that it all seems logical and normal. Knowing all about the subject does not solve the fundamental problem of no evidence outside documents proclaiming to move forward upon an unestablished assumption.
House of cards maybe built upside down... posible to imagine but non existant in reality.
The scriptures are written by humans and for them to have authority they need more than a claim the author was inspired by God.
Keep well.
Alex
You're surely already question begging that Buddhism has knowledge to impart. It may be that they have opinions to impart, but you surely shouldn't assume up front that they have knowledge. Knowledge is (in simplistic terms) a justified true belief. I get how everything you've put forth so far, with regard to "how one has to be" can lead one to justify their belief (whether others find that justification circular or not), but how can you establish that it is actually true, that it is the explanation of whatever it is you believe, rather than just a belief, a conviction, that it is true?
That is certainly a claim made by Jesus. How is it knowledge? On what grounds is it to be accepted as true? Where is the issue of epistemology raised in this?
And when you do you move into the subjective realm, away from any knowledge of God's existence being objectively true, and toward "true for me, not true for you".
I have no doubt that that is what you believe.
Are you suggesting that knowing God is self-evident?
I see nothing in any religious text that represents a convincing account of a revelation by a god. Which accounts do you find convincing?
The human condition is that we either experience reality through our senses, or our brains manufacture less reliable facsimiles. So which human faculty is used to know God.
But God hasn’t explained itself, people have. If as scripture portray, God can do anything, and wants to be known and adored by all, you would think it would find a more efficient way of making its case than relying on thousands of years of varying human interpretive proclamations.
The psychologically primed are those who are conditioned to rationalize beyond reason to accept the existence of a particular god is as advertised. You know, like a Trump supporter.
Trump said he could murder someone on a New York City street and his supporters would stick with him. God has been a material no show for most of its tenure while people have been subjected to constant death and misery, and adherents still give God a pass as well.
Why would an absentee god garner more affection than the accountable version?
So do that. What are you working with? What's your data?
Musika:
Are you now back-peddling on that because you think that there's no way you can know what is or isn't necessary for reality, after all?
If so, then it could just as well be the case that God is not necessary for reality. Either way, you can't know, by your own admission. Right?
Speaking for yourself, do you accept that God is real due to the testimony of religious authorities, or for some other reason?
If there isn't, that's okay. The parameters of this conversation, as set in the opening post, can go beyond empiricism.
Do you know of any non-empirical evidence for God, then?
Are you essentially telling me that you can't present any evidence for God because to do so would require that you define evidence in such a way that atheists would consider radical?
Are you essentially telling me that God is so fundamentally different from something like the Sun that the usual notions of evidence make no sense when it comes to discussing God?
But you and Jan have both told us all, previously, that God is necessary for reality. Without God there would be nothing, you said.
Are you now back-peddling on that because you think that there's no way you can know what is or isn't necessary for reality, after all?
If so, then it could just as well be the case that God is not necessary for reality. Either way, you can't know, by your own admission. Right?
Does omni-consciousness rate big in the theist dept? Or are you now willing to retract your previous claim that you know that God is necessary for reality?
Are you essentially telling me that you can't establish a cause-effect relationship between God and the universe (say), then? On what basis do you then accept the claim that God caused the universe?
Are you essentially telling me that the vast majority of theists have to rely on the say-so of other "expert" theists in order to know whether God is real? I was under the impression that theists thought they had more direct access to that knowledge.
Speaking for yourself, do you accept that God is real due to the testimony of religious authorities, or for some other reason?
Are you essentially telling me that there is no empirical evidence for God, here?
If there isn't, that's okay. The parameters of this conversation, as set in the opening post, can go beyond empiricism.
Do you know of any non-empirical evidence for God, then?
(continued...)
I'm interested to see if you can come up with anything concrete, because it seems to me that so far all you've done is make excuses as to why you can't or won't present evidence.
Do you have any evidence for God that is in line with your preferred definition of God? Never mind what my definition might be. Let's go with yours for now and see how far we get.
You are welcome to present your non-dumbed-down definition of God along with your evidence for the non-dumbed-down God.
I'm interested to see if you can come up with anything concrete, because it seems to me that so far all you've done is make excuses as to why you can't or won't present evidence.
As I said, fine. If, as you say, there's no empirical evidence for God, let's move on and talk about non-empirical evidence. On that front, what have you got?
What is the appropriate epistemological format that will allow you to present evidence for God? Why don't you go ahead and use that format, and present some evidence?