God, inside realiy or outside reality.

[Jan Ardena]

Celpha Fiael,

I understand what you are saying here but I don't think you do; the idea of "truth" is going to be within someone's personal reality and differ greatly from the next person's idea of truth.

Truth "is". Period.
If we accept something as "truth", it is either "truth" or a "lie".
But "truth" must "be".

We are still with this gap that one can only shout across: "It's true for me, so you have to stay in your universe and I have to stay in mine."

This can have no bearing on the "truth" regardless of whether they possess it or not.

The truth could be what it is without human consideration of the sort you listed above, but without evidence, how are they supposed to know what it is to begin with? Evidence is the bridge to truth and if we don't consider it, then truth may as well not exist as we will never have a compass to guide us to it.

Imagine being in a completely dark place, the size of ...say..a country. You reach into your pocket, and take out a pen-torch, you shine the torch, and what you see, you can use as "evidence" of your existence and origin. Would you agree that this doesn't even begin to deal with what "truth" is?

Jan.

 

[Celpha Fiael]

Celpha Fiael,



Truth "is". Period.
If we accept something as "truth", it is either "truth" or a "lie".
But "truth" must "be".



This can have no bearing on the "truth" regardless of whether they possess it or not.



Imagine being in a completely dark place, the size of ...say..a country. You reach into your pocket, and take out a pen-torch, you shine the torch, and what you see, you can use as "evidence" of your existence and origin. Would you agree that this doesn't even begin to deal with what "truth" is?

Jan.

Jan,

I appreciate your response. You and I actually agree wholeheartedly on our ideas of truth, I believe that truth has to be and is not subjective to each individual; in other words, I believe in an objective truth just as you seemingly do. The reason I was speaking of truth in terms of a subjective experience is because that is what VitalOne's idea of truth reminds me of, and I was adhering to his territory to better understand his view point (I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to expose holes...ultimately with the intention of arriving at the consideration of an objective truth even!). I am meeting him halfway, if you will.

 

[VitalOne]

Jan,

I appreciate your response. You and I actually agree wholeheartedly on our ideas of truth, I believe that truth has to be and is not subjective to each individual; in other words, I believe in an objective truth just as you seemingly do. The reason I was speaking of truth in terms of a subjective experience is because that is what VitalOne's idea of truth reminds me of, and I was adhering to his territory to better understand his view point (I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to expose holes...ultimately with the intention of arriving at the consideration of an objective truth even!). I am meeting him halfway, if you will.

No...I never said the truth was subjective (wtf?), I wonder where you're getting that from, in fact I stated that the truth is the truth with or without evidence, with or without belief, etc...and on also said that the only thing that's real is the truth...

 

[VitalOne]

I understand what you are saying here but I don't think you do; the idea of "truth" is going to be within someone's personal reality and differ greatly from the next person's idea of truth. So saying that the truth is real doesn't get you anywhere, as it is also subject to this personal reality. We are still with this gap that one can only shout across: "It's true for me, so you have to stay in your universe and I have to stay in mine."

Wtf? I don't know how where you're getting this...how can I explain...the truth is objective and unchanging, and the truth is that we each exist in our personal reality/universe, the truth is that reality is an illusion, etc...it doesn't matter if you believe this or not, etc...

So these alternate realities, we have no way of contacting them? And furthermore, aren't you being a bit over-dramatic with these "realities", wouldn't the gist be conveyed if we instead called them "possibilities"? It seems the latter works in the same way except is free from all the extra baggage that the tag "alternate reality" carries with it.

Well eventually we'll have a way to contact them, all realities exist but we only this one right now, the only thing that actual exists is God, they're not simply possibilities but actual worlds, universes, etc...

Eventually this will be known as a scientific fact..., when it becomes verifiable...

I am quite intrigued by this as it overlaps the self-fulfilling prophecy, a phenomenon I am very apt to think of when you speak this way. A word of caution however; merely because I can adopt a world view and have my experience resonate with it does not make that world view true. A kid who believes in Santa sees a jet plane light in the sky on Christmas Eve night and is sure that it is Rudolph's red nose. He would be tempted to count his experience as further proof that Santa surely exists, but that's a temptation I think he, as well as we, should resist.

Hmm...how can I explain this...although we each exist in our own universe, our own world, our own reality, our views don't make up reality, they're just views....

Well this certainly is poetic, but there is a problem. The truth could be what it is without human consideration of the sort you listed above, but without evidence, how are they supposed to know what it is to begin with? Evidence is the bridge to truth and if we don't consider it, then truth may as well not exist as we will never have a compass to guide us to it.

The truth doesn't care about evidence...are you suggesting that the Sun revolved around the Earth until it was discovered that the Earth revolved around the Sun? Or would you agree with me and say that the Earth revolved around the Sun despite what people previously thought?

Having said all that, and I don't mean to be pedantic, but you still haven't answered my original question. I understand what you believe, but I wish I understood why.

What was your question? Why do I believe this? I already explained that...

 

[Celpha Fiael]

Wtf? I don't know how where you're getting this...how can I explain...the truth is objective and unchanging, and the truth is that we each exist in our personal reality/universe, the truth is that reality is an illusion, etc...it doesn't matter if you believe this or not, etc...


Well eventually we'll have a way to contact them, all realities exist but we only this one right now, the only thing that actual exists is God, they're not simply possibilities but actual worlds, universes, etc...

Eventually this will be known as a scientific fact..., when it becomes verifiable...


Hmm...how can I explain this...although we each exist in our own universe, our own world, our own reality, our views don't make up reality, they're just views....


The truth doesn't care about evidence...are you suggesting that the Sun revolved around the Earth until it was discovered that the Earth revolved around the Sun? Or would you agree with me and say that the Earth revolved around the Sun despite what people previously thought?


What was your question? Why do I believe this? I already explained that...

There is a great deal of confusion here, let me try to clear some of it up. The reason I took your description of truth as ultimately a subjective one, even though you allow room for a mention of objective truth, is because of statements like these:

No, your world-view doesn't create reality, but we each exist in our own personal reality, our own personal universe, which is like a bubble, a mirage, etc....what is "real" is the truth...

when you change yourself all your experiences change...

it is not that your environment causes your feelings, but your feelings cause your environment...

You are viewing what you believe to be truth as objective. However, your definition of truth is at heart a subjective definition, with no other backing other than your personal experience (or personal reality as you would say). The reason I say that I wish I understood why you believe these things is because while you've offered details about what you believe, my original question is left unanswered. This was the closest thing to an answer you gave:

How did I come to this conclusion that the world is like a dream? Well from my personal experiences, mainly..

Here you say that what you believe of truth is backed by your personal experience. That is fine for you, but this means nothing outside of your personal experiences, a place that none of us can truly go. This allows for a tremendous potency of personal truth, but the other side of that coin is that it is tremendously ineffective as a universal truth to that same extent. In this way, what you define as truth is not objective in any sense of the word. So that is where my saying that ultimately, I take your view of truth to be a subjective one comes from.

Indeed, you've made this point yourself:

Hmm...how can I explain this...although we each exist in our own universe, our own world, our own reality, our views don't make up reality, they're just views....

So, simply stated, we can't accept "my personal experience" as ground for defining an objective truth. I think we're on agreement here.

A more refined version of my original question perhaps is in order. If I was to echo you and respond, "My personal experiences say that what you claim is not true." What makes your personal experience more legit than mine and what gives it any leverage over my personal experiences?

I hope this has clarified what I was saying and asking.

 

[lightgigantic]

Emnos

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If God 'exists' outside reality he simply does not exist.
Definition of reality:
re·al·i·ty
–noun, plural -ties for 3, 5–7.
1. the state or quality of being real.
2. resemblance to what is real.
3. a real thing or fact.
4. real things, facts, or events taken as a whole; state of affairs: the reality of the business world; vacationing to escape reality.
5. Philosophy.
a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.
b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.
6. something that is real.
7. something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reality

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the next question is whether you think the words "reality" and "matter" are synonymous ...

If God exists inside reality he exists inside the universe as the universe equates reality.

from your use of the word "universe" it appears that you do ....

Because the universe by definition contains all that is real,

"matter" and "what is real" being synonymous right?

there is no "external reality" (or space, or time) in which it can exist or have been "created".
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This either means that:
- God came into existence together with the universe, or
- God came into existence later on in the universe.

In either case this means God couldnt have created the universe.

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try looking up the word "transcendental"

Lets look at the statement that 'God came into existence together with the universe'.
This actually cant be true because of:
From The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
"a deity capable of engineering all the organised complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, . . . must already have been vastly complex in the first place . . ."
He calls this "postulating organised complexity without offering an explanation."

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as opposed to what?
postulating organized simplicity without offering an explanation?

So God must have come into existence after the universe came into existence.

or alternatively, the material universe is a perverted reflection of the spiritual universe (similar to platonic realism), and the spiritual universe is a constant contingent potency of god who is eternally omnipotent

You could say that God has been created by another God-like being, but this would be circular reasoning.

you could say that it would be reasonable to expect an eternal fire to have eternal smoke, eternal heat and eternal light.

In the same way there are many eternal potencies of god - one being the spiritual universe and another being the material universe

The only other explanation i can think of is that God must have evolved from 'lesser' beings.
If this is true then there is a race of Gods somewhere.
Alternatively, God is the sole survivor of the God-race. Which would mean Gods race is not immortal.

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So IF God exists he did not create the universe, he was mortal and most probably not the only one of his species.
It starts to sound like God may have been an 'alien'.

Either that or he doesnt exist at all.

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What are your thoughts on the ideas i presented above ?

science fiction

Edit: Crap, i screwed up the title...

thats ok

you're not god