Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[plumjam]

Why can no one answer the question from the OP? We've had clarification upon clarification, and so far we've had a bunch of people describe the OP as a trap, and another one tell us that we wouldn't understand what he would say anyway.

I see excuses not to answer the question filling up four pages so far, and not one single actual answer. Wouldn't it be more productive to have an actual discussion, and not a 'dodge the question' marathon?

It might just be that there are no theists here who are apt to (as the atheists would seem to prefer us to do) dogmatically argue the absolute mutual exclusivity of their own particular notional formulations about God.
Like I said earlier, that kind of understanding of religions is a pretty innacurate straw man.

For the geeky indoctrinated teenagers.

 

[athon]

I don't quite get your sensation/experience dichotomy. When I look at the clock here, it is a sensation. So too if I ask someone for directions. Their reply in my ear is an auditory sensation. It just so happens that both those 'sensations' manage to improve my level of knowledge.
Likewise with the sensation of love. When feeling love you are simultaneously improving your level of knowledge. You are getting closer to knowing the true nature of all reality. This happens to some extent with interpersonal love, it gives some kind of glance.

Sensations needs to be interpreted in order for it to be considered useful information. Looking at a clock, light enters your eyes and results in the formation of a pattern on the retina, which is interpreted by your brain. This is then made sense of, and your brain interprets the pattern to discern a time. That is what improves your knowledge.

Love is also a sensation, but the interpretation is less straight forward. It means that the other person has qualities which appeal to you in some form. However, unlike our reading of the time as 'knowledge', this sensation isn't literally interpreted in such a manner, but rather provokes a response. Most emotions are like this, which is where they differ to other stimuli.

Unfortunately interpersonal love is impure in that it is centered on a particular fallible (according to our commonly selfish criteria), impermanent phenomenal aspect of reality, i.e. an ordinary human being. Thus it gets mixed up with egoic things like possessiveness, jealousy, competition, power relations etc..
With Divine Love these aspects are not present, and thus a full knowledge of the nature of reality is gained.

Going on from what I was saying, this information is not present in the sensation. It is an emotion, and the information which is present in the reading of a clock - which relies on observing a pattern which relates directly and explicitly to other experiences - is not the same as in an emotion, which provokes a reaction rather than conveys explicit meaning.

It's true that people can hear voices and be mistaken. People can be mad.
But you can't dismiss a whole zone of human experience merely because sometimes people are mistaken.

Actually, you can. If it is more likely that people are mistaken, and we can show that the mistake is likely to occur, than such an observation makes for a better explanation than one which has no (and cannot have) evidence in support of it. The latter explanation is equal to any speculation which lacks evidence.

Scientists make mistakes too. They can delude themselves, cling to theories for emotional reasons. They can see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't want to. They can misinterpret results etc..
All that doesn't mean we should throw science out the window.

Ah, but that's the point. Instead of 'scientists' just read 'people'. It still means the same thing. Science, however, is a system which endeavours to reduce those mistakes as much as possible by removing the emotional desires. Yes, scientists still make mistakes and make emotional choices, but the criticism inherent in the system allows corrections to be made. This is not the case with faith, which instead embraces the emotional reasoning as evidence for the said faith.

Athon

 

[Henners]

What I was getting at is that if something like falling in love happened only to a small minority in society it would be just as easy for the majority to dismiss it, as with your Napoleon example, as just another batty idea.
The only reason falling in love is accepted as a real and meaningful phenomenon is because it happens to most people.
No other reason.

Likewise, if most people experienced genuine spiritual experience, the phenomenon and its meaningfulness would not be routinely dismissed as it is now.
So it's a kind of mob rule, if you like.

I'm all for poetry. I don't quite get you on that one.

If Love is genuine spiritual knowledge, there would be no need to create poems about it, for everyone would have access to the same genuine spiritual knowledge directly. Consequently, Love cannot be genuine spiritual knowledge and your argument is wrong.

Your assertion that minority batty ideas are in a different category from majority ones is wrong too. It would only be right if it were possible to change reality using your vote. Or to look at it another way, if enough people thought that they were Napoleon, they would actually become him.

Like I said. One batty idea is pretty much indistinguishable from another.

 

[plumjam]

Love is also a sensation, but the interpretation is less straight forward. It means that the other person has qualities which appeal to you in some form. However, unlike our reading of the time as 'knowledge', this sensation isn't literally interpreted in such a manner, but rather provokes a response. Most emotions are like this, which is where they differ to other stimuli.

Interesting, this love business. I would argue that the qualities of the sensation of love exist and act pretty much independently of the phenomenal qualities of the object of that love.
(I would say that the phenomenal qualities of, for example, a person, would be better described as attraction)
This would explain, I reckon, why the experience of love is described so similarly across time/cultures/circumstances.
Broadly, I'd describe the sensation of love as a diminution in the sense of separation, a movement away from exclusive identification of the self with your own individual body/mind, an expansion of identification, a sense of unity, communion, bliss and happiness.
In other words it is a unitary experience, as is spiritual experience.

This is why I say love is a knowledge experience too. Love is a method of communicating knowledge of the unitary nature of reality.
This will be why it is not an experience amenable to words, because words belong to a realm of knowledge based on definition, and thus implicit separation.

 

[plumjam]

If Love is genuine spiritual knowledge, there would be no need to create poems about it, for everyone would have access to the same genuine spiritual knowledge directly. Consequently, Love cannot be genuine spiritual knowledge and your argument is wrong.

I don't quite follow your reasoning here. Are you saying that if we all have knowledge about something there's no need for us to attempt to communicate amongst ourselves about it? We all know about detectives, but we keep making those films and tv series.
There is a difference between human love and divine love. Poets generally write about human love. Some poets such as Hafiz have written about divine love, based on their spiritual experience.

Your assertion that minority batty ideas are in a different category from majority ones is wrong too.

Never said that.

It would only be right if it were possible to change reality using your vote.

This is, in fact, pretty much what the modern materialist secular world has done: changed the currently socially acceptable definition of reality along the lines of majority rule.
So it hasn't been me who has been doing the voting.

Or to look at it another way, if enough people thought that they were Napoleon, they would actually become him.

Not really. In that situation the socially acceptable view of reality would be that most people actually are Napoleon. It would only be the "batty" minority who held the factually correct view of reality.
[/QUOTE]

 

[blobru]

Australians are often accused of having 'tall poppy syndrome', but most of the time it's just that we can't stand arrogant wankers. You want us to thank you for 'providing the way of life we live'? News flash, moron - you're not more important than anyone else on this forum. You want us to thank you? How about thanking Athon - after all, he's the one teaching science to the next generation. He's been raising the next generation of scientists and crime scene investigators, and he's being paid peanuts to do it (Australian teachers are not paid what they're worth 90% of the time.)

Why can no one answer the question from the OP? We've had clarification upon clarification, and so far we've had a bunch of people describe the OP as a trap, and another one tell us that we wouldn't understand what he would say anyway.

I see excuses not to answer the question filling up four pages so far, and not one single actual answer. Wouldn't it be more productive to have an actual discussion, and not a 'dodge the question' marathon?

Moby, as a recent convert to the one true religion, and certifiable wanker, I believe I can answer the OP without dodging.

The religion I have converted to, the one authentic spiritual path to everlasting holiness, is Blism. What is Blism? you ask. Well, as I explained in the "problem of evil" thread, it is simply the belief that God doesn't want us to believe in Him. To reiterate, its tenets:

God allows evil as proof He doesn't exist, because He doesn't want us to believe in Him.

He created us to ask questions like "Why is there Evil?" and "How can we fight this evil?"

He worried if we believed in Him, we would get lazy and pray for Him to fight evil for us, and never learn to fight it on our own.

So He was very careful to wipe all fingerprints from his creation, and leave no evidence behind.

Above all else, God wants us to trust ourselves, grow up, and not worship Him.

God hates faith.

Heaven is only for people who don't believe in it.

Believers go to whatever hell they believed non-believers would go to.

Victims of evil can be forgiven the sin of belief.

So what then is the evidence that my god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false? Lack of evidence! Obviously, a God who didn't want to be believed in would leave no evidence. And look around: clearly that's what God has done. Who are we to doubt God's manifest wish not to be believed in? Blasphemers!? Wankers??!! For to worship is to wank. But let those other scaredy-cat "religions" reject calls for evidence; Blism welcomes such calls, for they reveal the very lack of evidence that Blism, alone among the world's creeds, predicts! Thus, lack of evidence is irrefutable evidence that Blism is the only true religion -- any wanker can see that... right?

 

[Mobyseven]

Lolz at Blobru.

Any of the noisemakers want to throw their hat in the ring now? Or are they all too busy polishing their egos?

 

[Mashuna]

It is not faith at all. It's a shame that that idea is so widespread.. but that ain't your fault.
Genuine spiritual knowledge comes from inner experience, not from faith. Faith can be a necessary prior component to attaining spiritual knowledge. It's reasonable to expect that if someone is going to expend their time and effort in some endeavour they'll need some initial degree of faith that there'll be a meaningful result at the end of it.
That is true with all human endeavour; including things like science.
Even Buddhists, who don't talk much about God, need to have faith that their spiritual practices will produce some meaningful results.

Religion has to do with the spirit/consciousness. The spirit/consciousness is internal. It is not, as yet, intersubjectively observable via any scientific instrument, and may never be.
Methodological naturalism is predicated on the assumption that the subject matter of its investigations will be intersubjectively observable. Therefore to apply this methodology to spirituality is not appropriate.

Or, to paraphrase the language of the playground,

"I know something you can't know."

 

[plumjam]

Or, to paraphrase the language of the playground,

"I know something you can't know."

Not at all. There are well defined, tried and tested methodologies for knowing about it.
The problem is that they take much more time, effort, and commitment of the whole person than merely flicking open a textbook or some such.

 

[Henners]

I don't quite follow your reasoning here. Are you saying that if we all have knowledge about something there's no need for us to attempt to communicate amongst ourselves about it? We all know about detectives, but we keep making those films and tv series.
There is a difference between human love and divine love. Poets generally write about human love. Some poets such as Hafiz have written about divine love, based on their spiritual experience.

The phrase "Genuine Spiritual Knowledge" is your own. Are you disowning it?

Never said that.

This is you saying it:

What I was getting at is that if something like falling in love happened only to a small minority in society it would be just as easy for the majority to dismiss it, as with your Napoleon example, as just another batty idea.

 

[plumjam]

The phrase "Genuine Spiritual Knowledge" is your own. Are you disowning it?



This is you saying it:

No, and no.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

You are not seriously comparing your conviction that there is an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever to your favorite flavor of ice cream, are you?

Well - since I do not have that conviction the answer would be "NO".

 

[volatile]

Well - since I do not have that conviction the answer would be "NO".

You're not a Christian, then?

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

You're not a Christian, then?

Yes I am a Christian. But I don't believe in "an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever "

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Or, to paraphrase the language of the playground,

"I know something you can't know."

In many of these reports regarding profound religious experiences, awakenings, enlightenments or extraordinary experiences of unity (east and west), the basic knowledge gained seems to be that god is pretty much equated with reality, or existence. If god is reality, then there’s really no point of proving gods existence, is there?

Up for grabs are the interpretations and manifestations of how people ought to live their life. It has nothing to do with the existence of god, but a whole lot to do with how god (reality) is acknowledged in the minds of humans.

“I am that I am”, “Before Abraham was, I am”, “Atman is Brahman”, The Dao that can be spoken of, is not the real Dao” etc. etc… Pretty hard to argue against that or create an idol that would encompass that. Yet people do exactly that, and I have no idea why – kind of like arguing against reality while pissing against the wind. There’s an old saying: one who sets out to find god, finds himself and one who sets out to find himself, finds god. The experience of I am seems to be the beginning and the end to this journey.

 

[Mashuna]

Not at all. There are well defined, tried and tested methodologies for knowing about it.
The problem is that they take much more time, effort, and commitment of the whole person than merely flicking open a textbook or some such.

It's a bit like homoeopathy then, really.

Anything works, for a given value of works.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

Hey V23 and anyone else interested,

If you like pondering things on the universe here is a post I posted in another thread.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3239317#post3239317

It was not intended as proof of God at all, but rather just a list of some of the crazy things scientists ask us to believe and which I have no problem believing.

Also - here is a link to the thread on whether Science can prove there is no god
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3241227#post3241227

The reason I did that thread was because of the following:
I asked why people don't believe in a god of any sort - Answer: there is no evidence
I asked what sort of evidence - Answer: Scientific
I asked if supernatural events could ever be proven, especially a one time event, with Science - Answer: No

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes. But I don't believe in "an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever "

Those two statements are impossible to reconcile.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

I corrected it because it was unclear. Here it is again:

Yes I am a Christian. But I don't believe in "an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever "

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I corrected it because it was unclear. Here it is again:

Yes I am a Christian. But I don't believe in "an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever "

Please elaborate. The existence of the "one true god" and his "judgement" have been foundation dogma of Christianity since the Nicene creed. If you claim to be Christian, you must believe in "an invisible man who lives in the sky who rules over the universe and casts down sinners and infidels into a fiery pit of endless torment forever."