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What actually do JREF religious believers believe?

punshhh said:
Who knows? In my use of elsewhere I am referring to what may exist beyond our known universe. .
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Why should anything exist beyond the known universe? The universe may be bigger than we suspect but that does not mean that you can think spirits, elves, fairies and creator gods into existence.
 
punshhh said:
You are mistaken, you will find that I was illustrating the absurdities that emerge when grappling intellectually with existence or the origin of our known universe.
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When I have time I will try to dig up your remarks about creator gods,
 
dafydd said:
You won't find any meaning in gods thought up by mankind.
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I think the ideas we have about God are theories, a set of possibilities, some may be right and others not. Many things even 'thought up by man" have meaning to us like art, literature, music, wine. Nature is not "thought up by man" but can also provide meaning to us. Theories about God, true or false, may provide us meaning as well.

My partner and I bought each other a violin (our Christmas gifts) and we are taking lessons and having a great time. It is something we thought about for a long time, just a possibility, now that it is done, it means something to us.
 
RoseMontague said:
I think the ideas we have about God are theories, a set of possibilities, some may be right and others not. Many things even 'thought up by man" have meaning to us like art, literature, music, wine. Nature is not "thought up by man" but can also provide meaning to us. Theories about God, true or false, may provide us meaning as well.

My partner and I bought each other a violin (our Christmas gifts) and we are taking lessons and having a great time. It is something we thought about for a long time, just a possibility, now that it is done, it means something to us.
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I play the violin. Best of luck with it. Practice every day and you'll get there.
 
punshhh said:
Nice illustration of my point about science making it difficult to see past QM, GR and maths, when considering notions like spirit or creators.
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So the best person to see or communicate with spirits would be one completely untrained in science?
 
punshhh said:
Yes, so we should distinguish between notions and things that exist outside the human mind and discuss them separately.

I shortened the point to such an extent that it will require teasing out. My point was that the human mind is a product of evolution and is therefore developed as a tool for the survival of the species in a terrestrial ecosystem. This conditioned state is what I am pointing to and is a primate coloured pair of rose tinted glasses.

A pair of tinted glasses we have no choice but to look through. Basically we look at existence through the eyes of monkeys.
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Do you have any different eyes? If not then you're subject to the same limitations that the rest of us are so how come you're perceiving all these spirits?
 
RoseMontague said:
I think what would happen is that skeptics would turn into CTers, probably claim the scientists have been indoctrinated or something. Maybe the Pope put some magnets under their chairs.



The universe is God's creation, not Herself. God can certainly interact with the universe, imo.
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IOW you don't think that anyone disagreeing with you has any integrity or honesty.
 
RoseMontague said:
Science tells us that certain things exist even before they are observed. It's like the double helix of DNA, scientists even knew what it looked like but only recently got a picture of it. Hawking radiation has not been observed, yet some scientists believe it is there because the universe does not seem to compute without it. Some scientists also believe God exists because it is the only way they see the universe as being possible.

Faith however, has been described as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The evidence of things not seen is the common ground with science , imo. To me, the things hoped for part is our desire to give some meaning to life, the universe, and everything.
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Why does belief in god give meaning to the universe and your life maybe god created the universe to find out what her meaning in life was and humans are just mold in one of the test tubes.
 
tsig said:
Why does belief in god give meaning to the universe and your life maybe god created the universe to find out what her meaning in life was and humans are just mold in one of the test tubes.
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I don't care for mold. Molded maybe.

"Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded."
 
dafydd said:
Why should anything exist beyond the known universe? The universe may be bigger than we suspect but that does not mean that you can think spirits, elves, fairies and creator gods into existence.
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There's a long article about the universe and its beginnings in the 'New Scientist' of 1st December; I was listening to it (CD) today. It was very interesting about the possible extent of the universe(s).
 
RoseMontague said:
This is where we disagree. I think science will eventually prove there is a God. The wiki article on Hawking radiation is a good one and efforts to prove it are getting close. My personal opinion is that the more we find out about the universe the closer we get to finding God.
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That is exactly the opposite of what I think. The more we understand the Universe, "god" will seem like a silly idea from our infancy.
 
RoseMontague said:
That is the perception and clerics tend to circle the wagons without thinking things through. I believe that the more knowledge we get the closer we get to the reality of God. I am really excited about the discoveries mankind is making.
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Do you mean the knowledge that god doesn't exist?

RoseMontague said:
If your faith is strong, the position should be that knowledge will reveal God and not disprove God.
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I have no faith in god as he/she/it doesn't exist.
 
Multivac said:
That is exactly the opposite of what I think. The more we understand the Universe, "god" will seem like a silly idea from our infancy.
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That is the common belief. I believe I said if your faith is strong you should not be afraid of the truth but strive for it. We may be living in the Hotel Portmeirion at present, we just need to break free and see beyond the waters.
 
RoseMontague said:
I don't care for mold. Molded maybe.

"Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded."
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If you believe that quote then why are you looking for meaning outside yourself?
 
RoseMontague said:
That is the common belief. I believe I said if your faith is strong you should not be afraid of the truth but strive for it. We may be living in the Hotel Portmeirion at present, we just need to break free and see beyond the waters.
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If we're living in the Hotel Portmeirion then it's because that's where god put us so we shouldn't try to look beyond.
 
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