To prove God not existing, atheists conflate God with invisible unicorns.

[Jan Ardena]

James R,

It's worth pointing out that there is some question as to the degree to which Flew was influenced at a time in his life when his mental faculties were in decline. In other words, it might be less a case of him coming to see the light and stopping childish games yadda yadda yadda than of a man in the throes of Alzheimer's being taken advantage of by some religious types who were very well aware of what a coup it would be to get a famous atheist apparently to recant on his deathbed.

You’re simply attempting to explain it away. Why would you do that? Surely it’s something worth investigating.
Belief in God is natural to humans, and by God I mean, the original source, the original cause. If Flew was off his rocker, his natural faculties would still be intact i.e. hearing, smelling, feeling… etc, and so would his capacity to accept God, and therefore believe.

In summary, I don't think I'd hold up Flew as the best example of an atheist coming to see the light.

IOW, shut down any opportunity to comprehend and understand God.

We must keep God out of the picture! Is that it James?

In other words, one has to have faith, in the sense of believing in stuff in the absence of evidence. That goes against the basics of the scientific method, which I guess is why so many scientists don't believe in God.

One simply has to accept it without bias, then as one understands what is being said, one can therefore ask pertinent questions and make informed decisions as to whether it is feasible or not.

Something like this, but accept a thought without believing it.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - attributed to Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics).

Ah, I get it. Atheists are stupid! That explains why they don't believe in stuff that has no evidence like they should. Thanks, Jan.

I dare say we’re all stupid in the light of the truth. But I didn’t say that atheists are stupid. Stupidity does not necessarily arise through a lack of intelligence, neither through ignorance. A child isn’t stupid be he doesn’t understand that his parents have to pay the mortgage, the reason why he can’t get Xbox One.

In all his campaigning, Flew didn’t stop to think about God, and his relationship to God.
He effectively wasted his time sprouting, what eventually became for him, nonsense, and affected others with it.

Wait a minute! You can't have it both ways. One minute you're saying people just have to accept that God exists regardless of evidence, and the next you're saying that no, there really is some evidence that we can use to make a rational decision after all. So which is it?

If you don’t accept God, for who and what God is (character), then how can you decide that the notion of God or belief in God is absurd?

Acceptance is different from belief. Acceptance means you suspend belief or disbelief, and take everything at face value. Then as you begin to understand, you begin to make informed decisions on the whole idea.

If you accept that God is the original cause, then you must accept that everything IS evidence of God. If at this point you decide that is illogical, and has no basis in reality (lest it be proven within the logical framework), then you have effectively cut yourself off from understanding how the whole thing works, and now see God purely as some illogical idea with no basis in (your) reality. This is the level at which the ghostly teapot is aimed. It has no basis in informing one who or what God is. It serves to cut ones acceptance of God, and increase ones non acceptance (ignorance).

Lots of people believe in God for fairly insubstantial reasons. I'd even wager that quite a few do believe just because of one thing - one thing that happened to them, one thing they were told by their parents or teachers, one thing they felt in a quiet moment, or just one wish they have. And they're theists as much as you are, no matter how you try to redefine the term.

I’m not redefining the term, I’m looking beyond the term. Theism is a real thing in that there are people who believe in God. But that’s all, the term ‘’theism’’, can offer.

Again, it seems to me that you already stated that no evidence can lead you to the unavoidable conclusion that God exists. To get there, you need a leap of faith, which means you make a choice to believe in something for which you have insufficient evidence.

Faith is a different thing. We all have faith, because we all (or at least most of us) have goals that we want to achieve. The goal dictates how much faith we must have. If we want to eventually get married, make a family, buy a nice home, and so on. That doesn’t require as much faith as wanting to be a famous rock star.

I don’t see the point of getting hung up on the existence thing. Experience tells me one cannot prove God’s existence to someone else without that person accepting that proof. But that is unscientific and does not really satisfy the enquiry. And it works the same for non-existence.

As it is said ‘’ "the absence of evidence is not theevidence of absence".

Reality checkpoint: There will never be any evidence that lead every person to God exists or does not exist. Therefore, to keep bringing it up, is simply a waste of time.

That's assuming you're making a conscious choice, of course. But most believers don't go through a process of logical reasoning and examination of evidence to get to their belief in God, anyway. They are indoctrinated into their religion by their parents, their relatives, their friends, their society, and so on. That is, they effectivelyinherit belief in God by default.

But is that belief in God, or belief in what i been told. If it is belief in God, then at some point that person will carry on inquiring about God, because the person believes in God. It stands to reason, if you believe in something, you want to know about that thing. If you believe in what you were indoctrinated with, it stands to reason that you will shun everything that contradicts what you were taught.

So let's see how that reads from the other side:

Everything we genuinely believe in, has its basis in some form of experience, so what’s at question here is the experience, not the belief. Theists believe God does exist, and the reason they believe this is personal to each and every one of them. Of course most of them have been conditioned to cry ''Look at all the evidence'', but evidence does not yield any experience to back up their claims. They simply have no choice but to stick to ''I feel that God exists, therefore God exists''. That is ALL they have to bring to the table.

The bolded section is incorrect in my opinion.

Belief that God exists is not something the human being has to cultivate, as it is a natural aspect. History bears witness to this. One does not need science, or scientific evidence to believe God exists.

Scripture is just words written by people. It's obviously important to you and your belief, Jan, so I can understand how it rankles when people point out that it's just words written by people. Your belief that scripture is God's word is just faith - belief in the absence of evidence.

Scriptures are more than just words. In fact good books, whatever the subject matter, are more than just words. Have you never read a book or article which physically/mentally affects you beyond your immediate control. Make you laugh, cry, angry, feel horny… Those words, upon understanding, affect different parts of your psyche, filtering down through your body. Scriptures does that, but it also affects you, the observer, the one who wills the mind and the body. In that connection you realise thta though you are attached to this body, you are not this physical body. This is the beginning of knowledge of self and God. All the great spiritual Masters, Jesus included, sought to wake people up to this.

Belief in God does not mean one has knowledge of God, or one is better, safer, or happier then one who does not believe. It is neither something that one can choose to do. What we can do is control how we perceive it, we can ignore it b occupying our time in ways that render it dormant, allowing us to forget about it.

Belief in God means we can access that information (scripture) easier than if we didn’t believe.

There are different levels of belief, as many as there are people. No two people can believe at exactly the same level, just as no two people are exactly alike.

To sum up, belief is something that is activated (or not) according to individual. Atheism and Theism are simply gross categories we put ourselves, nothing more, nothing less.

This is my opinion.

Jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Pachomius,

Let us all exert to be systematic in our thinking and writing.

My intention in requiring you all to put your information datum of the concept of God at the top of your post is so that we can start from a logical launching pad of departure in our exchange.

My concept of God is that God is the original person, and from this person everything comes into being.

The objective of this thread is for me to prove that God exists, and you atheists God does not exist.

If you can do that, it would be great because it would mean we rise above arguments of there is no evidence for god, theists are delusional, who created god, and a whole host of what will eventually become waste of time arguments.
It will be interesting to see how you do this.

You are also entitled to set forth your concept of God even though you don’t accept that God exists.

I find it strange how there are different concepts of God, when really there is and can only be one concept of God.
Are all the concepts derived from the one concept, or are they whimsical concepts? But why have a whimsical concept for something that has it's own concept?

jan.

 

[Motor Daddy]

Are all the concepts derived from the one concept, or are they whimsical concepts? But why have a whimsical concept for something that has it's own concept?

I'd say they probably started worshiping fire, the sun, the stars, lightening, etc. At some point someone probably said, this is a bunch of crap! Since we can create things on earth, then somebody must have created the earth too! None of us could have done it, so it must be some guy in the sky that created earth. The other people looked at him and proclaimed him to be the king! Long live the guy that figured out that there is a guy in the sky!!

Edit: And then, of course, the people will fight to their grave over defending that guy in the sky! They will kill people in the name of their guy! History has been about defending the guy in the sky! Current daily activities revolve around the guy in the sky. "In God we trust" is printed on our money. Christmas (present season) brings joy to merchandisers financial statements!!!! Without it, well, let's just say it would be a bad year for store owners, and the gubment!

 

[Captain Kremmen]

To prove God not existing, atheists conflate God with invisible unicorns.

What about visible unicorns?

 

[Aqueous Id]

Step 1 -- For the sake of argument theists
and atheists concur that God in concept is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.​

You know that's not true, so why post it? Atheists disbelieve that. The concept is an ancient one, handed down through millennia of tradition as superstition, myth, legend and fable. Atheists do not accept it, usually because they recognize that it's all fiction. In any case, religious people do not necessarily believe it either. You are trying pigeonhole all the world's religions into you personal (Christian?) belief system. That's stupidly egocentric.

Step 2 -- Theists concur among themselves that the universe has a beginning.

No. Not all religious people are "theists" and not all of them have a concept of the universe, and not all of them have a Creation Myth that is compatible with yours.

Step 3 -- Atheists concur among themselves that the universe has always existed.

False. Atheists merely reject the belief in God, regardless of what they think about the origins of the Universe.

Step 4 -- Theists invite atheists to join them to proceed on an expedition in the universe to search for God in concept the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning, by looking for all instances of existence with a beginning and/or all instances of existence to have always existed.

What is that supposed to mean? Is that your personal fantasy of how the collision of conflicting ideologies plays out? Because it has little or nothing to do with the real world. In actuality, there are societies that make war on one another and commit heinous atrocities in the name of their so-called religions. There is no universal peaceful dialogue between conflicting ideologies as you naively presume.

Step 5 -- Atheists invite theists to join them to proceed on an expedition in the universe to search for God in concept the creator and operator of the universe and
everything with a beginning, by looking for all instances of existence to have always existed and/or all instances of existence to not have a beginning at all.

That sounds childishly moronic. Science texts in the early education programs teach Big Bang theory, evolution, the need for stem cell research, the woman's right to abortion, the current trend toward accepting gay marriage, and anthropogenic climate change. All of these are bitterly opposed by certain religious groups.

Get real, man.

Step 6 -- Will theists find all instances of existence in the universe and also the universe as a whole to have a beginning, and cannot find any instance at all in the universe to have always existed: and conclude God exists as the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning?

No. They will continue to hold up anonymous myth, legends and fables as reference material, and in some cases they will stubbornly oppose all evidence from science sources about the origins of the Universe, and the origins of humans.

You seem to be in denial of the culture wars.

Step 7 -- Will atheists find all instances of existence in the universe to have always existed, in particular the universe as a whole has always existed, and cannot find any instance of existence that has not always existed: and conclude that God as creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning is not needed at all?

No. Atheists will disbelieve in God, regardless of what they think about the Universe and its origins. More childish nonsense, as if you are living under a rock or something.

Take the nose in our face, it is a part of the universe, does it have a beginning or it has always existed?

I already answered this, but you ignored it. The "nose" evolved from nares in fish, which an adaptation to improve their motility in changes depths and pressures. That is, by surfacing and filling air sacs through their nares, they become more buoyant.

Starting from the nose in our face all will proceed farther and on to the deepest depths of sub-atomic space and to the most distant stars at the nth distant fringes of the universe.

Gibberish.

That is the way of expedition, while the way of discussion is the preliminary work in our minds to concur for the sake of argument on the concept of God and the ideas of universe with a beginning or universe has always existed.

That's ridiculous. There is nothing to agree upon here except the fact that atheists reject the belief in God.

With critical comments from everyone here, we will revise my proposed argument system accordingly, so that when the conclusion is reached it will be accepted by everyone be he a theist or an atheist.

That willl never happen. But dream on.

Atheists, if you care to avail yourselves of a template for your argument against God existing, you are welcome to freely employ the order of argument above, you can adapt it for proving the non-existence of God.

There is no template. As you have been repeatedly told, atheism is a rejection of the belief in God. Period.

For example, you can start with Step 1 and continue successively with 3 and 5 and 7.

For myself, I will also start with Step 1 and continue successively with 2 and 4 and 6.

Of course we must work together to come to concur on Step 1, that God in concept is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.

No, you simply need to get real, come u off the nonsense and childishness.

If you don’t accept my concept of God for the purpose of our exchange, then you propose your concept to God and I will see whether we can at all exchange views on the existence of God according to your concept.

I am an atheist, so I think I speak on behalf of the majority of them when I tell you: we reject the belief in God. Period.
​

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Belief that God exists is not something the human being has to cultivate, as it is a natural aspect. History bears witness to this. One does not need science, or scientific evidence to believe God exists.

Religious faith has historically part of most (all?) societies, but I suspect that it is due to culture rather than genetic inheritance.
I could be convinced otherwise.
The existence or otherwise of God, is not of central importance as regards religion as a cultural phenomenon.
Would you agree?

In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings:

1. the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and
2. the distinct ways that people, who live differently, classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

 

[Captain Kremmen]

People sometimes believe in things which are contradictory.
Belief, and truth, are not necessarily the same thing.

 

[sculptor]

What about visible unicorns?

They are pink!
and
I don't know wtf they eat, but their farts could identify them to a blind man.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Captain Kremmen,

Religious faith has historically part of most (all?) societies, but I suspect that it is due to culture rather than genetic inheritance.
I could be convinced otherwise.

''Religious faith'', and straight up ''belief in God'', aren't the same thing, and the way you entwine them here, confuses the issue, rather giving clarity.

The existence or otherwise of God, is not of central importance as regards religion as a phenomenon.
Would you agree?

Religion really isn't the issue here, unless you take one religion and examine it.
From a theistic perspective, trying to prove the existence of God in a way that can satisfy a skeptic, is a waste of time. One simply gets drawn into a world of diversion. If one believes God does not exist, I doubt there is anything that can be said, or done by another, to change that person's position. I would encourage the atheist to stay as he/she is, rather than change because of what I say or do.

jan.

 

[spidergoat]

Thanks everyone for your posts.

Let us all exert to be systematic in our thinking and writing.

My intention in requiring you all to put your information datum of the concept of God at the top of your post is so that we can start from a logical launching pad of departure in our exchange.

The objective of this thread is for me to prove that God exists, and you atheists God does not exist.

And I being the author of the thread it is incumbent upon me to effect that the discussion follows as much as possible a logical rhyme and reason.

What better way to be logical than to already at the start for me as the author and thus initiator of the discussion to put forth my concept of God?

You are also entitled to set forth your concept of God even though you don’t accept that God exists.

Once we get all the concepts of God together then we will work to concur which concept of God to agree to focus on, so that I will labor to prove He exists according to the agreed on concept of God, and you atheists work to disprove that He does not exist in concept as agreed upon.

Isn’t that a logical departure launching pad to any debate?

So, here is my concept of God:

[In concept] God is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.​

Now, you each one keen on observing systematic thinking and writing, you set forth your data of information of the concept of God you have in your mental database, okay?

Do not be deterred by the fear that with setting forth the information of the concept of God you have in your mental database, you already admit the existence of God.

That is a groundless fear, because your proferred concept of God is just for the joining of issue; otherwise, I ask you, how can we ever be talking about the same thing, when you have another concept of the thing and I have also another concept different to yours?

Tell me then if you do have any apprehension, and let us talk about it, and hopefully resolve it to mutual satisfaction.

You keep saying the same thing over and over. And I've already addressed your concept, so let's get on with the debate.

Stating that God is the creator doesn't prove anything. We know how complex things can come about without a creator.
Stating that he is the operator is slightly more interesting, but we don't see any evidence that any part of the universe requires outside operation.
Stating that things with a beginning require a creator is also a non-starter. We don't know if the universe had a beginning or is eternal. If God can be eternal, then the universe can be eternal with a God. We do know that things with a beginning don't always require an intelligent cause.

I don't care what your concept of a God is, we can start from any assumptions.
My concept of God is that it's a fable to placate ignorant and fearful minds. It is an offshoot of an evolutionary trait, which is to seek the agent of any complex event or change in the environment. Because in nature, it is advantageous to be able to understand the behavior of life forms based on the evidence they leave.

 

[Yazata]

I don't concur that there is only one concept of God.

I don't either.

My concept of 'God' goes something like this:

First, there's the word itself. It's a word from the English language. Other languages have words that seem to be used in similar ways, more or less.

In some cases the similarity in range of meanings is close, as between English 'God' and German 'Gott'. In other cases it's much looser, as with the Japanese word 'Kami'. This creates problems when text from one language is translated into another language, since the range of connotations associated with words that translators are treating as equivalent might actually be significantly different. That's doubly true when we are considering ancient texts written in very dissimilar cultures thousands of years ago.

And second, within every language community words are used in a whole variety of different ways. What a word is intended to convey can vary a great deal, depending on who is using the word, who that person is addressing, and on context.

The English word 'God' is notoriously slippery in that regard. At one end of its range of meanings, we find the 'God of the philosophers'. In this usage, the word 'God' refers to whatever it is that fulfills a set of metaphysical functions: the reason why there is something rather than nothing, first-cause, the source of cosmic order, and so on. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, we find the 'God of the Bible', a 'person' who appeared to Moses at Sinai, formed a covenant with the Jewish people, revealed the Jewish law, inspired a whole series of prophets, and in the New Testament, incarnated in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, announcing a new path to salvation. Between these two extremes lie an almost limitless variety of hybrids, varying by theologian, denomination and religious writer. In addition, the Muslim 'Allah' has been included within the scope of the English word 'God' since medieval times, and more recently pretty much any even vaguely monotheistic deity has been embraced by the word, from any culture or any period of history, no matter how different the original mythology and philosophy.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

''Religious faith'', and straight up ''belief in God'', aren't the same thing, and the way you entwine them here, confuses the issue, rather giving clarity.

Would you say that you can have religious faith in a God that does not exist?
Would you say that a Hindu, worshipping Krishna, for example, has religious faith?
Or does such a person merely believe?

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Religion really isn't the issue here, unless you take one religion and examine it.

That isn't so unless you want to assert that a particular religion is different to the others,
If religion is a part of the culture of a society, then they are equivalent.

 

[spidergoat]

Would you say that you can have religious faith in a God that does not exist?
Would you say that a Hindu, worshipping Krishna, for example, has religious faith?
Or does such a person merely believe?

You can have religious faith in a concept that is not theistic.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

You can certainly have something very close to a religious belief.
But Jan distinguishes between faith and belief.
I was wondering if he thought that faith involved other religions, or just Christianity.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Would you say that you can have religious faith in a God that does not exist?
Would you say that a Hindu, worshipping Krishna, for example, has religious faith?
Or does such a person merely believe?

I don't know what religious faith is, but if someone say's that they have faith in something that doesn't exist (God or anything else), I would be dubious of that person.

If one worships Krishna, then they have faith in in Krishna.

jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

That isn't so unless you want to assert that a particular religion is different to the others,
If religion is a part of the culture of a society, then they are equivalent.

All cultures have a system of education, but the education itself differs from society to society. It is the same with religion, it is one thing in it's pure form, but it differs from institute to institute
jan.

 

[Motor Daddy]

I think what you're saying is that people are taught to be religious, probably at a very young age? That sounds like child abuse!

 

[iceaura]

Theist is a description, period. Unless you believe in God, you have no experience of what belief in God is

Unless, of course, you believed in God, and have a working memory.

You’re simply attempting to explain it away. Why would you do that? Surely it’s something worth investigating.

Indeed it is - but the predatory and unethical and amoral nature of evangelical Abrahamic monotheists is so well established throughout history that the likely lesson is a redundant one.

Belief in God is natural to humans, and by God I mean, the original source, the original cause

When the majority of humans have lived and died without adopting monotheistic belief, calling it "natural" is not a simple assertion. Many odd presumptions are natural to humans in particular circumstances - it's natural for a small plane pilot falling out of the sky in a cloudwrapped descending spiral to pull up on the stick to get out of the descent, for example, and only with careful training and practice will they automatically avoid making that lethal mistake - and the particular circumstances in which belief in a singular deity co-morphic with the God of the Abrahamic tradition becomes "natural" are worth investigating. But clearly such a belief is not universal or even very common, anthropologically.

 

[Jan Ardena]

James R,

This God of yours is supposed to be all powerful, able to perform miracles etc. It seems to me that it wouldn't be difficult for God to arrange a clear demonstration of his supernatural power for the benefit of those doubting atheists, or the people who believe in false gods. Really, any miracle that clearly messes with the known laws of nature would do the trick - and after all, that's what miracles are, right?

If God exists, then He is your God too, but your denial of Him, despite not believing He even exists, is noteworthy.

If God exists, I would have thought everything we perceive to be a clear demonstration of His power. . Wouldn’t you. What is it that atheists doubt exactly?

Regarding messing with the laws of nature, are you telling me that anything that occurs within nature wouldn't be deemed natural by God deniers? Would we still not be in the same argumentative position?

Come back with something that can only be caused by God.

But whenever theists claim physical evidences of God, invariably it is "miracle" cures that may have happened anyway, or weeping statues that can be shown to have natural causes, or unverifiable personal anecdotes. And so on.

I know. It’s a bummer isn’t it?

Better to just get on with your life, than trying to prove God’s existence by occurrences that could be have their explanation in the natural.

It's the same with people who think space aliens are visiting Earth. If they were able to do that, why hide and reveal themselves to backwoods hicks and nuts? Why not land their starships on the lawn of the White House?

Maybe they want the mainstream humans to remain ignorant so that they have a better chance of totally controlling them.

Nobodyequates the FSM or the orbiting teapot to God. Those things are illustrations about the need for evidence. Why don't you believe that a teapot orbits the Sun? Because there's no evidence that would give you a rational reason to believe in such a thing.

I’m still left wondering why you choose FSM’s, and celestial crockery.

It just seems weird. But if I was looking for magical singing and dancing knives and forks, I would need to see them, or hear about them from people who have seen them, but there doesn’t seem to be much instruction on how to find them.
Fortunately the situation is completely different with regards to God. Although we cannot see Him with our mundane senses, we have enough intelligence, and the ability to understand who and what He is.

Thank God for these human husks. Eh?

It's not a difficult analogy, yet theists struggle with it. And instead of confronting the point head on, they instead fold their arms and complain about how insulted they feel about this supposed "equating" of a teapot to their God.

Theists don’t struggle with the wording of that explanation, because the wording is silly and childish. Even you know that even though you won’t admit it.

The struggle comes in discussions when the atheist begins to go down that silly route, putting an end to the discussion. Nobody benefits man.

I can't see radio waves, yet I know they exist. It is simplistic to suppose that because something is invisible to ordinary human sense that therefore it doesn't exist. Existence can be inferred from all kinds of evidence.

So what’s your problem?

The atheist argument against the existence of God is that there isno good evidenceof any kind that points us unambiguously towards this thing called God. Compare and contrast radio waves, for example.

The atheist argument does not have a good criteria for knowing what would be good evidence. The only thing they can come up with is something purposely done in nature that wouldn’t normally occur.

But as I said before, you will just explain it away, or order everyone to put it in the - 'I don’t know box', until you come up with an explanation that satisfies your atheist palette. That's what you guys do.

The pink unicorn is the same as the orbiting teapot. We don't believe in them because there's no compelling evidence that points us in that direction. See?

I get what the overt idea, is.

I think it's important because we know that the human mind is apt to play tricks on itself. Individuals can convince themselves of the existence of all kinds of things that actually have no objective existence. So when somebody makes a claim that something exists - like space aliens landing on Earth, say - then we should check to see whether it's something aboutthemthat leads them to make the claim, or whether the claim is objectively true. Otherwise, we risk wasting a lot of time and effort chasing ghosts that have no reality

I’ve no problem with that. But it still does nothing with regards finding the truth, and it’s only the truth that we can rely on. If thousands, hundreds, even tens of peoples testimony have similar explanations, I would be more inclined to believe them than the skeptics who reduce everything to ‘’tricks of the mind’’. At least vary your oppression.

Once you accept that magic can happen, you're open to believing all kinds of things for which there is no good evidence.

Why? One can accept the concept of something without believing in it. Do you agree?

How does one voluntarily believe IN something? Do they say: Hm! I think I’ll believe that aliens visit earth’’?

If you believe in magic, then you can believe that ghosts can exist inside solid walls and can talk to real people outside. You can believe that in spite of the laws of physics and all of your ordinary experience of the world, because it's magic, and with magic anything is possible.

What is it about ‘’magic’’ that leads one to believe in ghosts?
Does it follow that if you don’t believe in ‘’magic’’, you can’t believe in ghosts? And what does ‘’laws of physics’’ have to do with ghosts?

You may be right that human have a tendency to believe - a tendency towards magical thinking.

Just letting you know I didn’t say that.

There may be good evolutionary reasons for that. But the fact that many people believe in something doesn't mean that it exists. That, as I'm sure you can see, is quite a different matter.

Obviously this is your own perspective, so I will try and address from that pov. If it’s evolutionary, it’s natural, then ghosts exist because humans see ghosts, and humans are purely natural products. In that case everything humans do is absolutely correct as it all exists purely within and by, nature.

If you start with your conclusion, of course you'll see that all evidence points towards the conclusion. You've already eliminated all other explanations of the evidence, before you start.

I call that, the answers at the back of the book. I suppose from a religious perspective that could be seen as the mercy of God. Ultimately everyone can be liberated, regardless of ther condition.

How is God an "essential" component in human history? Do you think human history is teleological? Please explain.

God is essential, because only through Him can we liberate ourselves from the bondage of material existence.

Also, you keep alluding to the "real meaning of God". What is that? Something that only you have access to?

As opposed to The Spaghetti Bolognaise Monster and, The Dodgy Supernatural Milk Jug.

How do you know your God isn't just ancient manmade nonsense? You're making an assumption again.

How do you know He isn’t your God too?

One just doesn’t KNOW stuff. That’s not how it works, not even in the world of science.

Jan.