What actually do JREF religious believers believe?

[Minarvia]

True. Until the hypothesis and premises are clearly defined for the sake of discussion, it won't go far. It seems that everyone who believes in a god or gods doesn't agree on them even when it comes to the same god or gods.

But here, Rose is sticking around. If she can tell us precisely what she believes and nail down how it works, then this will get really interesting! I have always wanted to know how a believer thinks things began, exactly, and also where the idea of "outside space and time" or "before the Universe began" came from.

I personally can't wrap my head around those concepts; they elude me utterly. But when I try and think on them I can't see any explanation of where said deities came from. What created them and was that thing destroyed, dispersed into said deities, or... what?

 

[bruto]

Are you saying your view on this might change if life was shown to exist on other planets? Just curiosity.

I would not expect so, since it's speculation, the universe remains utterly vast, and my argument was against the idea that life's uniqueness necessitates a miracle anyway!

 

[dafydd]

True. Until the hypothesis and premises are clearly defined for the sake of discussion, it won't go far. It seems that everyone who believes in a god or gods doesn't agree on them even when it comes to the same god or gods.

But here, Rose is sticking around. If she can tell us precisely what she believes and nail down how it works, then this will get really interesting! I have always wanted to know how a believer thinks things began, exactly, and also where the idea of "outside space and time" or "before the Universe began" came from.

I personally can't wrap my head around those concepts; they elude me utterly. But when I try and think on them I can't see any explanation of where said deities came from. What created them and was that thing destroyed, dispersed into said deities, or... what?

I did ask earlier on who or what created her god.

 

[The Norseman]

I always found it interesting that historically, people never seemed much to mind worshiping gods that were amongst a pantheon of others, some more powerful than others. Nowadays, it's all just "my god is the boss and creator of the universe! Of everything that ever or will ever exist, both in and outside of time and space and imagination and beyond existence and is the boss of whatever else humanity can comprehend and beyond everything humanity cannot ever comprehend!! So there!!"

I wonder if this is because of the desire to try and find more gaps for their gods into which they can fit.

 

[The Norseman]

I know this wasn't aimed at me, but as an answer...

Because I have seen, experienced, and met people to whom too many things have happened that simply can't be rationalised away.

For instance, I clearly heard my sister yelling at me to watch out for a car, something that prevented me being hit by it, except she was over 10km away visiting my Grandmother at the time. When I have brought it up before, the general consensus of the skeptic body’s wisdom is that it simply didn't happen, but since I was there and the skeptic body wasn't, I can say categorically, it did. And it's not the only thing I have personally experienced, though I'm not going to go into detail of other things here.

Talking with others I have heard a number of incredible stories which I have zero reason to doubt, often because there were other witnesses to the events as well, and they really had no reason to lie about it, in fact lying about it and then being caught out would have seriously harmed their standing.

Now none of these things are scientifically testable, it doesn't work on a demand and measure scale of things, in fact a lot of it can't be measured in any way. However, when it actually occurs to you and you're left sitting, or standing, there realising that what you just experienced is not possible based on the current scientific understanding of the laws of the Universe, then either you throw away some of the laws, of you accept that just maybe there is something beyond what we can perceive, something that exists outside of our own time and space, and yet can still interact with it.

I think again it needs to be said that the anecdotes are one thing, but -- they seem to be jealously guarded and kept safe from all attempts at questioning for some reason, but accepting that -- in essence it's the conclusions one reaches based on those anecdotes that don't stand up and are the things being measured.

In other words, it's fine you experienced what you say you experienced. The conclusions you draw from that experience are what people doubt. It's those conclusions which prompt people to ask for more corroborating evidence and it's those conclusions which continually fail to be supported by anything other than nebulous, vaguely similar anecdotes which even they do not lend themselves to any kind of close scrutiny.

One just cannot say, "this experience was real so therefore the conclusion I'm most wanting to have be true is real."

 

[Minarvia]

I did ask earlier on who or what created her god.

Ah, true. I remember now. This usually does not get answered in such a way as to allow a moving forward in a discussion, but I'm hoping it does this time.

There are believers, and then there are believers who actually research and think upon their beliefs. But that sort of behaviour eventually made me leave my previous beliefs behind and return to non-belief, but others make it thru and remain believers.

 

[Minarvia]

I always found it interesting that historically, people never seemed much to mind worshiping gods that were amongst a pantheon of others, some more powerful than others. Nowadays, it's all just "my god is the boss and creator of the universe! Of everything that ever or will ever exist, both in and outside of time and space and imagination and beyond existence and is the boss of whatever else humanity can comprehend and beyond everything humanity cannot ever comprehend!! So there!!"

I wonder if this is because of the desire to try and find more gaps for their gods into which they can fit.

I recently discussed this very thing with an old friend. He said that as Mankind has grown and developed, that more people are realizing that worshipping "little G's" (as he put it) is insulting to the True Maker of Everything.

 

[The Norseman]

I recently discussed this very thing with an old friend. He said that as Mankind has grown and developed, that more people are realizing that worshipping "little G's" (as he put it) is insulting to the True Maker of Everything.

Well, of course it is. And as I already knew that it was insulting to the True Maker of Everything, I instead chose to worship nothing. Just to be certain, I also made sure to believe in no gods at all, whatsoever.

Except the True Maker of Everything because her influence is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and surely only the True Maker of Everything is all things simultaneously as no things!

I think most people know the True Maker of Everything by her real name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. May you all be blessed by her noodly appendages!

 

[RoseMontague]

I did ask earlier on who or what created her god.

As I said earlier, I believe God exists outside of the boundaries of time. There is no before or after. God simply is and is at any point in time. Time itself could be a creation of God.

 

[Minarvia]

As I said earlier, I believe God exists outside of the boundaries of time. There is no before or after. God simply is and is at any point in time. Time itself could be a creation of God.

Do you mean that it's possible "God" is what all the particles of the Universe are? Do you think it's quite possible He/She is not sentient and may not create things deliberately, but planets and such could be "accidental" for lack of a better word?

I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I myself never really thought of this sort of possibility before now, but somehow the way you worded your response my mind went in that direction. Or are you certain "God" is a sentient being and does everything consciously and with deliberation?

 

[RoseMontague]

Do you mean that it's possible "God" is what all the particles of the Universe are? Do you think it's quite possible He/She is not sentient and may not create things deliberately, but planets and such could be "accidental" for lack of a better word?

I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I myself never really thought of this sort of possibility before now, but somehow the way you worded your response my mind went in that direction. Or are you certain "God" is a sentient being and does everything consciously and with deliberation?

I think that God is spirit, nothing of particles. Physics is the study of the physical universe and that includes such things as very minute particles, even the 'god" particle. I don't see such an accident, with or without God. There has to be an intent, imo.

 

[RoseMontague]

Ok, so there was some word, in the dictionary sense, that God spoke before finally getting to work on the big bang. I assume it's as good a start as any.

So, did this word play any particular role? Or was just God saying some irrelevant word, like, say, stubbing his toe in the dark before he created light and going, "<bleep>!"?

Does the universe respond to voice commands? Can we do it too?

For that matter, given that the universe didn't even exist yet, how does it take commands before existing?

What form or nature would this word have? Not only there isn't any medium in which sound would propagate yet, but there wasn't even space and time in which that would take place. So how did God speak there?

For that matter, since there was no time and space, where was God? He couldn't have been IN this universe before he created said universe. Is there a bigger universe where God is? Who created that one then? Is there a bigger god over all gods? Is it turtles... err... gods all the way down?

Etc.

You were saying before you wanted to see some mixed discipline of science and theology. But the science part wouldn't even be able to start doing anything, unless the hypotheses and premises are clearly defined.

There is quite a bit in Eastern religion and philosophy about true/original names/nature and the power of them as well in standard philosophy and mythology. It is an interesting concept. Perhaps the true word was BE, and by saying it the universe became.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As I said earlier, I believe God exists outside of the boundaries of time. There is no before or after. God simply is and is at any point in time. Time itself could be a creation of God.

Let's see how this sounds:

I believe the God 'stuff' that makes up the Universe we exist in, whatever that 'stuff' was, existed outside of the boundaries of our Universe's space and time. There is no We can't currently detect what existed before or what will exist after. Time itself could be appears to have been a result of God the Big Bang, but could have existed before and after depending on what existed/will exist.

We can only see back to the fraction of a second after the Big Bang and we are currently unable to see beyond the Universe. (We can't actually even see the entire Universe at this time because of the limit on the speed of light.) There is no reason to make up things that we cannot see any evidence of, especially god myths since there is so much evidence gods are just human fiction.


I took "God simply is and is at any point in time" out because it didn't make any sense to me. I wasn't sure what you were trying to say.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Anecdotes, not real answers.

Funny thing, but when it comes to "Why do you believe?" the real answer is because of personal anecdotes.

You might as well ask why someone does or doesn't like spinach. Not everything is quantifiable.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I think again it needs to be said that the anecdotes are one thing, but -- they seem to be jealously guarded and kept safe from all attempts at questioning for some reason, but accepting that -- in essence it's the conclusions one reaches based on those anecdotes that don't stand up and are the things being measured.

The problem is that we're talking about things that simply aren't measurable in any way, shape, or form. I've had lots of people try and explain the one I gave, my sister's voice, basically it came down to them claiming it either never happened, or that my brain made it up afterwards so I only think it happened. The idea that it actually did happen is something that they were unwilling to accept and certainly could not explain rationally, so therefore, despite not being there, nor experiencing it, they determined as it was impossible, it can't have happened, case closed. This of course ignores the fact of what the witness, me, tells them.

In other words, it's fine you experienced what you say you experienced. The conclusions you draw from that experience are what people doubt. It's those conclusions which prompt people to ask for more corroborating evidence and it's those conclusions which continually fail to be supported by anything other than nebulous, vaguely similar anecdotes which even they do not lend themselves to any kind of close scrutiny.

And how do you provide evidence of an experience? It's not like I was wandering down the road with a tape recorder. (and even if I had been and it had captured the voice, how would it be evidence anyway?) 99% of the things that lead me to believe there is something beyond us are through things I have seen or experienced that simply cannot be recorded or proven to anyone else, they can't be analysed scientifically, taken apart and studied.

Now those are my experiences, other have had experiences that are more recordable, being healed of a disease or sickness for instance, but we all know that those are written off, even if they weren't on medication at the time.

So what sort of corroborating evidence would you actually accept that something occured?

One just cannot say, "this experience was real so therefore the conclusion I'm most wanting to have be true is real."

And yet that doesn't happen, I have heard stories where people have wanted their experience to be anything but an accepting that there is more out there than they believed, but in the end had no other way to explain what occured to them and accepted it because nothing else fitted. That certainly isn't fitting a conclusion to a predetermined belief.

 

[PhantomWolf]

So what sort of corroborating evidence would you actually accept that something occured?

I want to explore this a little further.

In early Novemeber of 2008 I was in New York and ate lunch at a Macdonalds in lower Manhatten.

What sort of corroborating evidence would you be willing to accept as proof that this actually occured?

 

[kerikiwi]

i want to explore this a little further.

In early novemeber of 2008 i was in new york and ate lunch at a macdonalds in lower manhatten.

What sort of corroborating evidence would you be willing to accept as proof that this actually occured?

cctv

 

[PhantomWolf]

cctv

And given the fact that most footage is only held for a few days before being reused? What else would prove it, or is there nothing that can?

 

[kerikiwi]

And given the fact that most footage is only held for a few days before being reused? What else would prove it, or is there nothing that can?

No, there is not much that can prove it.
But the likelihood of its being true can be assessed.

 

[Resume]

I want to explore this a little further.

In early Novemeber of 2008 I was in New York and ate lunch at a Macdonalds in lower Manhatten.

What sort of corroborating evidence would you be willing to accept as proof that this actually occured?

Why would such a mundane claim need corroboration?

NYC exists, as does McDonalds.