Who said it was?
If God is real, how would you know?
- Thread starter Jan Ardena
- Start date
Who said it was?
?? No one. But most people, if left to their own devices, do not learn truth.
They learn quite a bit. They learn fictions that let them survive. A bird does not know aerodynamics; it simply knows that if it flaps its wings like so and spreads its tail like so that it can leave its nest. They may believe the "truth" that their muscles, rather than aerodynamics, allows them to fly. Works for them. Not the underlying truth, of course, but they don't care.
What is education based on? Teaching is a skill that has taken centuries to perfect, and is still being refined today. But most teachers have gotten quite good at their vocation over the centuries.
There's the problem with your OP. It seems any questions about the reality of God are doomed to have goalposts, and other things, moved around.
I read something a long time ago, in the I Ching I think, about having to embrace the tiger so one can return to the mountain.
Don't ask me, it sounds cool though.
It comes from a place that has no name, grasshopper.
If it's based on a supernatural power it's a religion.
If there's no supernatural power, it's just Burning Man.
Not according to their religion. Their religion, the People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ, was based on worship of Christ, communist ideology and racial equality. It was as accepting of God as any other religion out there; indeed, it was based on it.
Doesn't matter. If you believe in a supernatural God, you have religious beliefs. By definition.
It's like saying you believe in Christ but not Jesus. You may well make a distinction there - but those terms refer to a single entity.
In line with the thread title, "If God was real, how would you know" I would expect him to raise from the dead, every person that has ever lived: I would expect him to part the Pacific Ocean and let me walk to Fiji...I would expect him to enable me to travel from one end of the universe to the other...I would expect him to grab a handful of mud, breath on it, and have it change into Nana Mouskouri.
I would expect him to do things that went entirely against physical law. But none of that is going to happen, and the staus quo remains as is...that is we have no evidence for any god/s or any other supernatural nonsense...zero, zilch, nada!
I would expect him to do things that went entirely against physical law. But none of that is going to happen, and the staus quo remains as is...that is we have no evidence for any god/s or any other supernatural nonsense...zero, zilch, nada!
Tho opening post asks a simple question to atheists.
If there is no God, how can you recognise evidence of God. You’re always going to come back to “there is no God”.
Okay.
Classic evasion.
Nope, we come back to "there is no recognizable evidence for God".
The religion wasn’t based on God.
It wasn’t even based on the supernatural.
It was based on the man. Jim Jones.
It was as atheist as you can possibly get.
Not necessarily.
If you believe in meditation, you are going to live the type of life that exemplifies your belief.
If you believe in heavy rock, you are going to live the type of life that exemplifies your belief.
If you believe in God you are going to live the type of life that exemplifies your belief.
None of those types of lifestyles need to be fixed.
Lol!!!
No it’s not.
There is nothing for you to recognise.
If you decided that something was evidence, it would only be because you accepted it as such.
You would have to go from “there is no God” to “ there is a God”, without moving from your worldview. But you can’t, because for you there is no God. Somehow I get the impression that you would not be changed by the experience of realising there is evidence for God.
You're literally one step away from sticking your hand up my ass and making my lips move.
How do you know?
Aerodynamics is neither truth, or knowledge.
It is information based on the truth that is creatures that fly. The truth is already there. A bird knows it can fly, and it knows how to fly.
IOW it is endowed with real knowledge.
They don’t have to believe. They have full knowledge. Aerodynamics have a long way to go, to master the art of flying, and that’s no disrespect to that area of science.
But a salute to the Supreme Designer.
No.
“It is a latent talent in many people. It, like all talent, is lost if it is not used and developed. Schools are, in general, the best places to do that.
What is that based on?
This is a problem of the gods humans invent, and the processes by which they do. One way to look at it is that reality simply is, while people need reality to mean something that has to do with them because that need to be needed or significant or affecting, or otherwise not utterly powerless and ignored and insignificant, drives the focus on what "God" has to do with oneself.
I have an old Sufi line about this filed away, somewhere, but even that expression can start to sound earthsick, with strong odds of being ironic metacommentary. It is, for instance, one thing to say, there is an idea, and then there are accretions, but, "idea", is far too limited a concept. There is something, and in the Sufi way of looking at it, the rest, those accretions, are what become religion. That is to say, there is God, and the balance of the rest is religion.
Reality is as reality will; if we need to feel special, we don't actually need subordinated divinity as a surrogate. Between chaos constrained reflecting its constraints, and the point that were we humans supposed to evolve some other way we would have, it is well enough to accept we are made in God's image, and quite clearly, there are some people in the world who need that comfort. For the rest of us, the rain means we're getting wet, and we can grumble about that all we want, but people still take their umbrellas, and who will go out of their way to have it out with the barefoot ecstatic dancing in the park? The rain can be the same as it ever was, and petrichor is still a scent that will do what it does to some people's brains.
Moreover, an anthropomorphized expression of a mysterious concept—i.e., perfection—feels accessible because otherwise there isn't really any point in anthropomorphization. And, to the other, access to anthropomorphized perfection will do what it does to some people's brains. So if the ecstatic dancing barefoot in park seeks access to mysterious, stylized perfection instead of simply revels in sensations triggered by a scent reminding us we're alive and not without hope, well, remember whence come Dervishes; whirling about in dizzied pursuit of ecstasy until accidentally figuring out what one is missing isn't the worst idea in the world.
Jan recognizes deceit in Christians, just not himself.
Like Joe Rogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Howard Stern?
Like Sir Christopher Lee, Joko Widodo and Prince Harry?
Like Jim Jones, John Wayne Gacy and David Berkowitz?
Because you never stop putting words in my mouth. Try reading what I actually say as opposed to what you want me to say.
Personal experience.
It is both. Aerodynamics will happen whether or not you believe in it. A storm that tears the roof off your house doesn't care what you believe, what god you pray to or what sort of hoax you think science is. It will happen only if and when aerodynamic forces make it happen.
And the next day, when you are looking at the ruin of your house, you will realize that there is an absolute truth, and it doesn't care about you.
Yes, by flapping its wings. It does not know the truth of how that happens. If it thinks "it's all due to muscles" (if it even thinks that much) then it believes an untruth.
No, they don't - any more than a doctor who believes diseases are caused by evil spirits has full knowledge.
Definitely not.
A guy who prays to the Supreme Designer to make his canvas wing fly, rather than rely on science, will die when he tries to use it off a cliff. He will then learn a truth about aerodynamics (before he dies, that is.)
A guy who studies aerodynamics, trains with aircraft designers, and accrues a lifetime of experience, will not die when he builds an aircraft and tries to use it off a cliff. He has true knowledge. The guy who believed that the Supreme Designer would do it for him - does not.
A lifetime of experience working with people who have education in a field vs people who do not have education in a field. You may never get to experience that; if so, you're lucky.