The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

[logger]

All depends on which Gospel and who the writer is.

Most of us who have a clue about the historic origins on the bible and that it is written by authors who had different agendas know that there is not one consistent message.

I know that Acts 5:1-11 reads more like something that you might read from the Book of Mormon
Acts 5:1-11 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

You do realize that these two were not innocent people?

You do believe in punishment don't you?

 

[Nonpareil]

I think that the fundamental basis of reality is Mind (not our little ego minds, but something larger) and that this universe is projected by it.

And you have no basis for this belief, so the discussion is over.

Nothing in science is certain

This is only true in the most pedantic and worthless sense.

We realise we did not consciously create these experiences and therefore that there is at least one deeper level of consciousness than we seem to be part of or in contact with. The little ego mind has discovered Mind at large, or the surface of it at least.

No.

We also observe others and suspect they have minds too. Some of us have experiences of being linked to those minds through telepathy

No.

Everything snipped was just more bare assertion nonsense.

 

[Belz...]

I see the villagers are coming over the hill with their pitchforks and flaming torches.

Yes, those nasty rationalists with their evidence and principles! How dare they demand evidence for my supernatural claims?

I think that the fundamental basis of reality is Mind (not our little ego minds, but something larger) and that this universe is projected by it.

That goes exactly against most theist theories.

The reason science hasn't detected Mind is because science is part of the projection.

Why would the projection have absolutely consistent rules and laws? No other form of mind-related 'reality' has this feature. This is an important question for idealists.

Someone accused me of solipsism. If our mind has only thoughts, sensory experiences and emotions, then either solipsism (total identification with the mind) or naturalism (total identification with the movie it projects) becomes inevitable.

And yet I'm sure you get out of the way of speeding cars as if they were actually dangerous to you.

However, we lose consciousness, we dream, some of us have visions and other spiritual experiences.

Isn't that a point _against_ idealism?

 

[John Nowak]

I think that the fundamental basis of reality is Mind (not our little ego minds, but something larger) and that this universe is projected by it.

Were did this mind come from?

 

[Delvo]

Were did this mind come from?

It's an illusion projected by another one.

 

[abaddon]

You do realize that these two were not innocent people?

You do believe in punishment don't you?

I very much doubt you hand over all of your money to your church, right? Otherwise you would be unable to post here at all.

Does that mean that you should be punished with summary execution right now?
The holey babble claims so, do you not agree?

Does this not further demonstrate what an irrational vindictive monster the deity depicted in said book of tales really is?

Even if said deity actually existed, I would reject such abject evil without hesitation.

 

[Desert Fox]

You do realize that these two were not innocent people?

You do believe in punishment don't you?

Adding to what abaddon wrote,
Being gay or being of another religion is breaking God's commandments as well.

 

[logger]

I very much doubt you hand over all of your money to your church, right? Otherwise you would be unable to post here at all.

Does that mean that you should be punished with summary execution right now?
The holey babble claims so, do you not agree?

Chapter and verse?

Does this not further demonstrate what an irrational vindictive monster the deity depicted in said book of tales really is?

Only to people headed for the fire.

Even if said deity actually existed, I would reject such abject evil without hesitation.

I sure hope you do.

 

[logger]

Adding to what abaddon wrote,
Being gay or being of another religion is breaking God's commandments as well.

Being sinful is not a death sentence. Well unless you die without accepting Christ, but people sin every day even Christians, even I do.

A life of sin is the death sentence.

You guys really and truly do not understand grace through Christ.

 

[tsig]

I see the villagers are coming over the hill with their pitchforks and flaming torches. A hasty retreat may be in order (I can't take you all on, after all). But let me explain something, as some of you are getting confused about what exactly I mean by reality.

I think that the fundamental basis of reality is Mind (not our little ego minds, but something larger) and that this universe is projected by it. The reason science hasn't detected Mind is because science is part of the projection. This projected universe is real, but not objectively real. It's created by Mind and is more like a hologram, a shared dream or a movie. There are two kinds of knowledge, rational and empirical. Everything about the universe that we know, including all science, is empirical, and is therefore uncertain and does not deserve our complete trust. Rational knowledge, mathematics and logic, is certain and therefore really is fully trustworthy. Logically all you can be sure of is that you exist and have thoughts and experiences and that must be the starting point for any metaphysics, because it is all you know for certain. One consequence of it is that your knowledge that you are a conscious mind supercedes anything science has to say about consciousness, such as the claim that mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the workings of the brain. You already know you are a conscious mind with total moment-to-moment certainty. Nothing in science is certain, so you can eventually discount such claims as you learn more about your mind and its relationship to the movie. (This is why there is a 'hard problem of consciousness', because science is unable to detect the mind that projects everything our senses detect.)

Someone accused me of solipsism. If our mind has only thoughts, sensory experiences and emotions, then either solipsism (total identification with the mind) or naturalism (total identification with the movie it projects) becomes inevitable. However, we lose consciousness, we dream, some of us have visions and other spiritual experiences. We realise we did not consciously create these experiences and therefore that there is at least one deeper level of consciousness than we seem to be part of or in contact with. The little ego mind has discovered Mind at large, or the surface of it at least. We also observe others and suspect they have minds too. Some of us have experiences of being linked to those minds through telepathy and then we know that there are separate minds also connected to Mind at large and that we are not alone (solipcism is wrong).

If we identify with the projected world we forget to look inside and start to believe more and more that we are part of the movie. The actor identifies with the character and thinks the movie is reality. That's the position many atheists and skeptics are in. They are totally deluded. They couldn't be more wrong. They are almost out of their mind (think about that phrase). But because they are such great actors (and it's method acting writ large), they get most of the best parts in the movie and become 'men of the world'. But if we don't get too involved with the world, if we take time out for contemplation, if we avoid too many strong emotions and sensations, if we keep an open mind about everything, we become more aware that we are mind, we become mindful. We see that the signals we receive from and the emotions we feel about the projected world are strong, that our own thoughts can stir emotions up, and that dreams are ephemeral and intuitions and other subtle feelings are easily drowned out, so if we want to become mindful we have to seek silence. We go fishing or walking, solitary activities that give us space - in other words, help us get in contact with Mind-at-Large. We learn about people who pray and others who meditate, so we try these things and find that they help us too. We may start to see pictures in our head, have flashes of insight and knowledge, hear a 'still small voice', and we know there are still deeper layers of mind and we wonder how deep it goes. We also hear about the beliefs of people who pray and meditate and see that they correspond to what we are experiencing, so we take an interest in religion and spirituality. A lot of it seems crude and anachronistic and emotive, but we can see that there is also real insight and knowledge there. They are the people who are most like us now, so we may join a religion. There, we may learn about a book we never paid much attention to before, but which we eventually see was written by the scriptwriter to help us remember him. We may even witness a miracle, written into the script specially for us. We start to suspect this deeper layer of mind is helping us and notice an increasing correspondence between what is happening in our minds and what is happening in the movie-world around us. We understand then that this deeper layer of our mind is the one writing the ongoing script for the movie, putting clues in it for us. We stlll enjoy the movie now, but know that it really is just a movie, not real life, which is inside us, yet beyond our little ego minds. We realise that this is where the real action is and as we focus inward more than outwards we learn and are shown ever more about the larger Mind, which is limitless in extent and love. This is reality for us now, initially the picture house where the movie is being shown and eventually the door out of that picture house into the real world, from whence we came.

No. What a lot of assertions.

 

[tsig]

It's an illusion projected by another one.

Projected by another, ad infinitum.

 

[Belz...]

Being sinful is not a death sentence. Well unless you die without accepting Christ

God's such a dick. Worship me or suffer forever.

No sane, good-natured person does this. How can someone worship something like that, assuming one believe they exist?

 

[logger]

God's such a dick. Worship me or suffer forever.

He's been the biggest blessing in my life. I could never repay him for what he's done for me.

 

[Navigator]

God's such a dick. Worship me or suffer forever.

No sane, good-natured person does this. How can someone worship something like that, assuming one believe they exist?

It is an interpretation of an idea of a god. I tend to think it as natural as greed and lack of foresight etc...immature ideology...the thing is...people do not realize that their connection with the god idea of Christianity is contradictory to the concept of unconditional love and they try to defend the two concepts as if they were one thing.

Even worship of any idea of a god is contrary to that concept. theists are confused but think they are acting with genuineness.

the better thing to do in relation to understanding this is not to let it bother you.

(obviously it bothers you)

 

[MikeG]

Being sinful is not a death sentence. Well unless you die without accepting Christ, but people sin every day even Christians, even I do.

A life of sin is the death sentence.

How do you know any of this stuff? How can I check that you're right?

You guys really and truly do not understand grace through Christ.

Neither do you: you think this is a thing.

 

[MikeG]

.....I think that ......

Declaring everything that follows to be mere opinion, right from the start, is honest, but renders the rest of the text unnecessary. You are trying to debate with people who aren't interested in opinion, but want verifiable facts. As I keep saying, give me something that I can independently test, replicate, verify, and which is falsifiable, and I'll join your little club immediately your claims are proven. Otherwise "I think" doesn't cut it.

 

[abaddon]

Chapter and verse?

Acts 5:1-11

Desert Fox cited it.
You quoted it and responded to it.

You expect anyone to believe you have forgotten the last few posts already?

Only to people headed for the fire.

You mean the fire which the religious invented out of whole cloth? Which doesn't exist? Which you believe was created by the vindictive and perverse god of the bible?

Do you not realise the whole hellfire mythology does not come from the bible but is a later fabrication?

I sure hope you do.

I already have. In fact I am already in hell and have a very important role there. In fact, I am even named and described in your bible. See if you can find where...

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Projected by another, ad infinitum.

Are the projectors on turtles?

 

[Delvo]

I see the villagers are coming over the hill with their pitchforks and flaming torches.

Fantasies of persecution don't help anything.

The reason science hasn't detected Mind is because science is part of the projection. This projected universe is real, but not objectively real.

Not buying the premise really, but just accepting it for the sake of talking about it: what is happening, in a world created/projected entirely by minds, when people discover something new or do an experiment? Sometimes the results are as predicted, sometimes they're contrary to what was predicted, and sometimes they're something nobody had any predictions about.

There are two kinds of knowledge, rational and empirical. Everything about the universe that we know, including all science, is empirical, and is therefore uncertain and does not deserve our complete trust. Rational knowledge, mathematics and logic, is certain and therefore really is fully trustworthy.

What makes them different? They are both the working of the same mind(s).

your knowledge that you are a conscious mind supercedes anything science has to say about consciousness, such as the claim that mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the workings of the brain. You already know you are a conscious mind with total moment-to-moment certainty. Nothing in science is certain, so you can eventually discount such claims

Why must the two contradict?

as you learn more about your mind and its relationship to the movie.

Why is this stuff something that needs to be learned, instead of part of what we already know from the start?

If our mind has only thoughts, sensory experiences and emotions...

Wait... sensory experiences count now?! If those work, then there really is a really real reality out there for them to sense, because if there isn't, then senses aren't really senses but just hallucination generators! So if you're not going with the former, which is the one most "materialists" and scientists and other kinds of religionists and so on do but you seemed to pretty explicitly disavow earlier, then you're going with the latter, in which case you just introduced a new element here: the possibility that some part of our minds can mislead us about the nature of reality. And that contradicts the earlier premise that our minds are the only thing that's reliable, and undoes everything else you wrote.

However, we lose consciousness, we dream, some of us have visions and other spiritual experiences. We realise we did not consciously create these experiences and therefore that there is at least one deeper level of consciousness than we seem to be part of or in contact with.

Or our consciousnesses are not constant and reliable but fallible and circumstantial.

We also hear about the beliefs of people who pray and meditate and see that they correspond to what we are experiencing, so we take an interest in religion and spirituality. A lot of it seems crude and anachronistic and emotive, but we can see that there is also real insight and knowledge there.

Where did the problems with it come from, and, if some people can get it wrong, what protects others such as you from the same thing?

There, we may learn about a book we never paid much attention to before, but which we eventually see was written by the scriptwriter to help us remember him.

Ignoring for the moment the dire problems with that book's contents: why did the universal all-mind only want some particular group of us little minds to have this knowledge? (And, since what you're saying he mostly fits Buddhism but not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, why did it put that reminder in a book related not to the former but to the latter, which is full of extra trappings that point in an entirely different direction away from the truth?)

We may even witness a miracle, written into the script specially for us.

Why only for a few special people? And, given that our conscious minds can and do make mistakes, how to tell this apart from those?

We start to suspect this deeper layer of mind is helping us and notice an increasing correspondence between what is happening in our minds and what is happening in the movie-world around us. We understand then that this deeper layer of our mind is the one writing the ongoing script for the movie, putting clues in it for us.

This separates those of us who receive the clues from those who don't, and those who reach one conclusion about them from those who reach other conclusions about them. Why does it want to these categories and split us off into them?

as we focus inward more than outwards we learn and are shown ever more about the larger Mind, which is limitless in extent and love.

Why love? Why not just as much of a range of emotions as we experience ourselves? Others have done the same thing as you're talking about here and found something else instead.

* * *

Bottom line: This all comes from the premise that the mind is infallible, but there are a couple of big problems with that.

First, it's just stupid, both for internal mental processes and for ideas about the physical world. The understanding that you can get stuff wrong is required to identify when you have and when you haven't, and that is the only way to correct errors and become more right.

Second, everything else you developed from that idea contradicts it several times anyway. You include the physical senses as a source of information but say they can be wrong, which means your mind can be wrong/misled. You point out inconsistencies in consciousness such as the fact that we can become unconscious or have altered states of consciousness depending on what happens to/in our brains, but carry on right past them as if they weren't contrary to the premise. And probably most importantly, you talk about other people getting this stuff wrong even though there's no way to distinguish their processes/experiences from yours, no apparent basis by which to conclude who got it right and who got it wrong.

The only conclusion I can reach from all of this is that your starting point is not what you said it was: you don't think the mind is infallible; you just think yours is.

 

[PartSkeptic]

If it doesn't, why are scientific experiments so repeatable?

Are they? Are the rare exceptions simply discarded as "unexplained anomalies?"

And if God intervened much more frequently, life would be chaos, and we would know we have no free will.