God...who believes?
- Thread starter Thoreau
- Start date
I didn't see this, and I don't understand what what you mean.
Is life that simple ?.....
.Then you are merely a puppet.
You said you have no choice.
I said:
Now you've got me confused...
Are you saying that you don't understand how your saying that you have no choice means that you don't believe??
That is, if you believe that this is all there is and that we have full knowledge of the universe.
Lightning and rainbows were once considered to be supernatural/divine because they couldn't be measured or explained with the tools and knowledge we then possessed. It's not unlikely that we will make other great discoveries in the future. Not concerning earthly ghoulies, ghosties and holy spirits, which God knows we've had enough time to find a scrap of evidence for, but about worlds and beings that as yet remain undiscovered. A loaded question, such as the one the OP asks, requires us to come down to separation and semantics. Although for the most part I completely agree with you.
Alas, you're wrong. Belief necessarily implies election.
If you have no choice, then you cannot believe.
do you believe there's such a thing as gravity if a brick falls on your head?
Carcano
Valued Senior Member
Glaucon is stating that belief is different than knowledge.
Knowledge is provable...belief is not, and is therefore a choice.
Belief is just an idea held usually because its enjoyable or consoling.
Your 'belief in God' should really be called 'knowledge of God' if you have some real perceptual experience.
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oh, well knowledge of god it is then. thank you. can you believe something because you have knowledge of it?
No.
Carcano
Valued Senior Member
No, but you can know something because you have experience of it.
However...one has to be careful about evaluating experience.
People on drugs for example will swear up and down that they experience such and such about reality...only to have it all evaporate when the drug wears off.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
You completely agree with me. You said:
See ? They were once considered (i.e. believed to be) supernatural, and it turned out they are not.
Nothing is supernatural, everything is natural. Whether we can or can't measure or understand something has no bearing on reality at all.
Supernatural means 'above or beyond nature'. And it just so happens that nature encompasses all that exists anywhere and anytime.
Call it up! I'm not going to give it to you.
Here we go again.
You guys talk sometimes like you want me to put god in an envelope and mail it to you, or post a pic of it. Its not like that.
What is it like ?
Its personal. Something that's perceived. It takes place inside you, and it means something to you. I guess some people have wacky shit happen right off the bat, out of nowhere like angelic interventions and near death experiences and such, but for me it was a slow progression that I think I initialized by a sincere desire to know during a turning point. The first way that god showed himself to me or proved himself to me was when I understood the reason and the power of forgiveness.