Hello everyone.
I like your site. Some topics seem interesting. Others seem cuckoo.
I’m just a guy who believes in God because we don’t know the mystery of Why we exist and Why and How The Big Bang happened.
I hope to come back here again and check out your site soon.
Thanks.
All are welcome. Looking forward to a post from you.
[quote=“eli1, post:1, topic:9361”]
Hello everyone.
I like your site. Some topics seem interesting. Others seem cuckoo.
I’m just a guy who believes in God because we don’t know the mystery of Why we exist and Why and How The Big Bang happened.
I hope to come back here again and check out your site soon.
Thanks
[/quote]
Welcome eli1
From your nom de plume, I gather you are well versed in Scripture. There is much good to glean from those documents.
I hope you will also familiarize yourself with the more scientific models of origins and abiogenesis. Actually, we do know more about the possible scientific creation models than we do from Scripture which are so generalized when it comes to the creation of spacetime.
Welcome to CFI. Feel free to join one or more of the various conversations.
Thank you for the welcome and your mature responses.
My interest is mainly human thought processes and how we arrive at a conclusion when we are faced with an unknown. I’d like to know why people are content with the choices they make. I’d also like to know if people live up according to their ideals.
Based on a few topics that I’ve seen here, a few atheists here understand their position well and I respect that. I’d like to engage with them at some point.
I would like to avoid tired old debates about scriptures , proof etc because in my experience they’re not very interesting.
I’m more interested in thought process and consistencies.
Thank you.
Hello Eli - what about the simple proposition that God is something that’s created from within the human psyche?
As opposed to some God out there somewhere in the infinite voids of the cosmos?
That’s also a possibility but since it’s an unknown it will need to be filed under a Belief system.
Swirling around a lot of topics. Asking how you know what you know is a good start.
Ideals are the things we strive for, always moving toward them but never quite reaching them.
So here’s my position. We are faced with existence (starting from Big Bang).
We don’t know HOW or WHY this happened. So, I believe that God is responsible for all of this.
What I’d like to know is why people reach different conclusions and if they are consistent with their position.
The thought process is what I’m interested in.
So my reason is simply belief because we don’t know for sure. I’m also consistent with my position, but is an atheist consistent with theirs?
From what I’ve read so far in this forum, a few of them are and I respect that.
We agree that we don’t know. So, I draw a conclusion that is conditioned by what we do know. I rely on others to provide some of the data to with that (that’s a long discussion itself). I assign some sort of probability to how accurate I think the conclusion is (using proven methods).
I apply these methods consistently, I hope. That’s what happened when I started questioning my church. They were arguing about allowing gay marriage, so I started looking around for at churches, for one that agreed with my values. I could find ones that aligned with my politics, but all of them wanted me to accept things without evidence. This helped me practice the methods and led to non-belief.
Thank you for honest answer and I completely understand your journey into religion. Happens to many people actually where they are indoctrinated into religion without truly seeking God.
It also happens to atheists where they are conditioned in their responses like a pre-programmed robot from a factory without asking Why or questioned their reasoning.
You sound like a free-thinker and that’s exactly what I’m looking for to have a chat with.
At this point I would prefer we try to focus on the first step of the journey when we are faced with an unknown. We haven’t identified God yet or other details about religion (good or bad) but we are at the first step asking “Why do we exist”?
So based on that, what do we know about How the Big Bang happened which should also explain the Why?
I am very curious to know if there are any new developments to this existential question because if we know this, then I will change my mind if the reasoning shows that a Creator isn’t involved.
Does it matter?
Fact is you do exist.
Question is, are you satisfied with your own existence regardless of external conditions.
If so, why are you satisfied?
If not, why not?
This is also what I would like to find out from different groups of people believing or not believing in something.
Why do existential questions matter to some and not others? Also is their position consistent with their reasoning?
Me for example I am very happy and content with my belief in a creator and I love it !
Gives me happiness, joy and purpose.
In philosophy, not really. As long as there is a point that there is still some cause that we can’t identify, I’m not sure what could be new. But, quick history, we’ve gone from creation stories to evolution in the course of a few thousand years, and the age of this physical universe and pretty solid theories about the first few seconds of it in the last hundred years.
I like to compare the work at CERN to stories we were handed down. The ones in ancient scripture came from small groups, with no evidence, just revelations, and the groups were made up of ethnically related people. CERN employs people who speak different languages, they don’t discriminate against women, they don’t care about your religion if you have one, they work together with mutual respect to discover the fundamental forces. This is the vision of religions isn’t it?
I don’t know.
And the question doesn’t seem important to me.
I started with an inward searching and was always too busy with figuring out who I was and making sense of the world I was living in. I was content with god being a mystery, understanding the natural world and evolution and my body, those thoughts filled my mind from the gitgo.
But, I was very lucky at a very young age to be given an alternative to “God”, a riddle for a life time: “God, a speck of dust that wanted to be more.”
There’s another thing, from early on I noticed how petty God was - consistently petty in near every religion’s vision of God, and their personifications of God, produced revulsion in me, especially as I started living rural and near wilderness areas and learning about nature and the rhythms of life first hand. More and more and more it has seemed increasingly obvious that no real God who created all this could be so humanly petty - God could be nothing but an invention to justify the ruthless. Yet, there’s something more. The human need for a god, a companion through life, where all others come and go.
I’ve learned that God is plenty real, but at the same time God is a human creation, while we humans are Earth’s creation.
… Back to my struggle to make sense out of myself. A year ago I was able to enunciate what made me so different. Basically, I possessed a visceral awareness of, and appreciation for, being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution .
What was it that opened that potential up for me?How was it that the Abrahamic Mindset always felt foreign to me, if not plain wrong, (even if it wins all the battles).
I think I also finally nailed that one. It goes back to my early childhood, even before starting kindergarten …
(Being an Element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution, April 16, 2021)
Existential questions matter because we are conscious. That is, we perceive time moving forward, and can reflect on the past. All creatures instinctually want to live, otherwise life would just die out. Life wants to eat, breathe, find the right temperature. As conscious beings, we think about it, and that has become more sophisticated, so it’s not just about reproducing, but making the time alive more comfortable, happier, and happier for others. Why? Because we’re happier if others are happy. It’s reasonable to make some sacrifices, work now for later resting, reap then sow.
I think they matter to everyone, but a lot of people are spending most of their energy just getting by, so they aren’t interested in complicated philosophical questions. But if you are interested in your next meal, then you are answering an existential question with your actions.
Religions codify some of this. Religions are reactions to our desires. I think they get out of control and try to provide answers and offer comfort where none really exists. Prayer that petitions for something for instance; it might feel like you’re doing something, but you’re asking the deity to change something that supposedly it created to be that way.
I don’t know about other atheists, but I try to stay consistent. If you mean consistent with my disbelief, yes I stay consistent with that.
I studied religion, mythology, philosophy… with a major in Psychology. My thought process is what it is. There were many similar texts in many of the religious writings, but one saying, which I found so far in one place is the first verse of the Tao. Depending on what translation you read, it says, "The Tao/way/god that can be described/told is not the Tao/way/god. One translation is below, but it’s not the only way it is translated.
Blockquote (Text sourced from Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu) The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
This atheistic religion what I felt is a true statement. The idea of a deity is a human concept and isn’t actually. If there is a deity, it is beyond comprehension and beyond human words. For all we know, though, the universe is all there is, but if you believe in a god, whatever words you use is not it, except in your mind.
Krishna, who is the “I am”, the Xian god, who is also the “I am”, Allah, who is said to be “the all” and the “one true god” (like the Xian god is said to be), etc etc are all human concepts and nothing more. Does this mean there is absolutely no god? I don’t deal with absolutes. As I said, if it does exist, it is beyond human words and incomprehensible, but any human description of a deity is nothing more than a human concept.
I don’t know what is ideal, my values are caring for other animals, compassion for both humans and non-humans, respecting and taking care of the earth/nature. It’s why, for one, I’m a vegetarian. It’s also why I’m an activist for women’s rights, human rights, civil rights, etc. That’s the short details, but they aren’t difficult to live by.
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I have a much simpler answer that is scientifically defensible.
The “guiding principle” of the universal dynamics is of a mathematical nature.
A logical quasi-intelligence that is the ordering potential.
The proof of this is found in science itself . All natural phenomena are explainable with mathematics. Hence the Universe is a mathematical object.
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Hello. So my posts are limited on a daily basis, a restriction I’m hoping would lift with more posts. So I’m going to condense my response into one post.
I really like this because personally I don’t see science (or cern) as the enemy. Science is basically us asking HOW and to me science (so far) shows the glory of a creator. Because science is supposed to be (and is) an impartial peer-reviewed process and nobody should claim ownership of science (although most atheists do).
So to answer your question, I don’t see the Bible or the Quran or the Teachings of Buddha as a book which explains thermodynamics, tectonic plate movements or quantum mechanics but as relationship books which show a relationship to our creator.
Unfortunately many Christians confuse the Bible with an engineering book .
But for me it’s not an engineering book.
God gave me eyes to see and ears to hear so when I see the fossil records I don’t say “the earth is 6000 years old”.
This is where we might go into some tired-old debates of personal testimonies where skeptics don’t want to believe , while believing their own testimonies about an event and where I might ask questions such as :
Why react when someone says “I’m in pain”? And we’re not even at the verification phase yet where we get a doctor to verify, we’re at the first phase:acknowledgment.
Are the skeptics being consistent with their reasoning?
CitizenChallange, thank you for your explaining your reasoning and journey to me. So the question is not very important to you and that’s great. You also explained why.
You also said something which I consider a very important statement. You said “I don’t know”. Are you an atheist by any chance?
My journey is a bit different. I was raised into an atheist family and I had no idea what God was or the concept of reality or a Creator.
I basically came “online” at around 3 years old where my first memory was an orange falling into my head because I was trying to reach it with my hand from the table. So I cruised along until 15 where for the first time in my life I walked into a church. So that’s where I started to ask existence and everything we take for granted.
I also read that page/link you provided where one key word grabbed my attention. Ego. Maybe we can discuss this further in another topic. I think it might be an interesting convo.
Lausten, I also saw your other response and one of your statements grabbed my attention “lots of people are spending most of their energy just getting by, so they aren’t interested in complicated philosophical questions” This seems very reasonable to me so I can understand why some can’t ask these questions.
This also touches a bit on suffering which is an an extremely energy-draining situation physically and mentally.
Why do some people seek more meaning during suffering which can lead them into God or into a particular religion?
Is boredom worse than suffering basically? Because if people spend their energy on a 9-5 job, doing chores about food, socializing, work and entertainment then they don’t have time to ask philosophical questions?
Where do some of the suffering find their energy to ask Philosophical questions? Do they ask them because suffering broke their boredom routine or do they ask them because the suffering alerted them to something higher?
I’d rather not discuss your last paragraph because it deserves another topic. A topic I would call: “The consequences of a thought proven to be 100% true or false”.
I will comment on this though: “Prayer that petitions for something for instance; it might feel like you’re doing something, but you’re asking the deity to change something that supposedly it created to be that way.”
Seems to me you’re seeing this from a rules-based perspective where a deity has created something incorrectly so a request to change something would be in vain.
Whereas I see it as, asking a deity change something for you , and then it changes, would be a way to further appreciate the existence of a deity and also prove a lot of scriptures about the state of this world and the spiritual world, but this is where we’re going to get into the territory of “personal testimonies” which I mentioned above, which we can also discuss in detail in another topic.
You or other atheists for example might explain the change (or answer to prayers) as pure luck, as a statistical anomaly but then at the same token you may reject the fulfillment of prophecies from a prophet (Jesus) which is also a very high statistical anomaly which for someone like me, proves that he’s no average individual.
So there’s a lot to talk about here about thought processes.
Thank you for all your answers.
Yes this is an idea proposed by Max Tegmark.
When I hear this I basically see a creator.