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Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord

Donn said:
Stone you sound like some flavour of Deist. I am sure your essay would be appreciated here. If it's too long, plonk it on the web some place a drop a link here.
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Sincere thanks for the encouragement, but I have a feeling that out of respect for Vortigern99 (whose thread this is), we should probably wait to hear from her/him first.

I did already think of placing it somewhere and leaving a link. But that might make it harder for later responders to address specific points here and to pick it all apart. I'll let Vortigern99 call the shots on all this.

Cheers,

Stone
 
IIIClovisIII said:
1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2) The Universe began to exist; implying that it has a cause
3) Therefore, God exists

:boxedin::boxedin:
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I've been looking at and considering arguments for the existence of God for over 50 years.

Never seen one that was at all convincing.

In the above, #1 is simply asserted - how do we know that?

Seems evident in the macro world, but possibly not so in the quantum world.

Quantum theory leads one to believe that some things happen uncaused. Take two uranium atoms and if one decays and the other doesn't, causation fails - nothing "caused" one to be favored over the other. It's all probabilities. Or such is my limited understanding.

Feynman diagrams are based on particle pairs bubbling into existence, apparently uncaused.

So, if the first premise is faulty, all that follows is suspect.

Similarly, if #1 is assumed to be correct, and God exists, then God has a cause.

Unless the obvious special pleading is invoked - God is the one and only thing that exists without having to have begun to exist.

But if you grant that to God, then why not the universe?

And the final paradox is that the foundation of belief is faith. Why does any argument for God need to be put forth if belief is faith based? If and when a given argument or evidence proves God, that would spell the end of faith - and not in the way Sam Harris meant it.
 
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Stone said:
Hi Vortigern --

I appreciate your candor, and I do trust your motives. You appear honestly curious about anything new that can be brought to a discussion that first started in ancient India nearly three thousand years ago and shows no signs of abating.

I freely admit I have submitted my own take on this at one or two other boards already (not much more than that, though). However, it took on such a life of its own that it became a miniature essay in the end, and I now have it on my hard disk. I don't think I should submit it here without your express permission, due to its length.

I am not a Christian, nor a Buddhist, nor a Muslim, not a Jew, nor a Hindu, etc. But I do think that there is circumstantial evidence -- not proof -- indicating the distinct possibility of some sort of deity behind human consciousness. I don't subscribe to this deity having all the properties you outline above. So for many a believer on the web, I may not even count as a believer at all, since I circumscribe so strictly just what deity is and what deity emphatically is not -- IMO. Some have even asserted that my strictly limited construct suggests I don't really believe in the supernatural at all. Be that as it may, I do believe there is a deity of some kind, and the essay on my hard disk unwraps just what I surmise that deity to (most likely) be.

If you think you might be interested in seeing the (virtual) essay submitted here, I'm glad to oblige. But I hesitate to dump it here without an invitation from the OP-er -- which would be you, in this case.

Cordially,

Stone
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Thanks, Stone! I appreciate your vote of confidence and your sincerity. I invite you, for whatever my invitation may be worth, to post your essay "unwrapping just what you surmise the deity to be". I'll read it with an open mind.

Meanwhile, I'll be the first among atheists to admit/allow/confess that I perceive some kind of presence or elusive being seemingly fleeting at the edges of my mind. But knowing what I know of human behavior, I think what many people are convinced is a divine presence residing "behind human consciousness" is little more than our evolved instinct to attribute agency to the events we see around us (a useful attribute for hunters following prey on the savannah), combined with our minds' tendency to impose patterns on meaningless chaos.

Match those shared, inherited instincts with our desire for love and companionship, our need to understand the world around us, our urge toward social and personal justice, and society's requirement of an inarguable authority figure, and we see the factors that led to the invention of the gods.

There's truth in that; I only wish I could express it more eloquently.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I've been looking at and considering arguments for the existence of God for over 50 years.

Never seen one that was at all convincing.

In the above, #1 is simply asserted - how do we know that?
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And then problem two, with #2. It's not entirely meaningful to say that the universe "began." That implies a time before the universe, and there was no such thing.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
And the final paradox is that the foundation of belief is faith. Why does any argument for God need to be put forth if belief is faith based? If and when a given argument or evidence proves God, that would spell the end of faith - and not in the way Sam Harris meant it.
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Yes, absolutely. The core of the god in the OP is faith. It is central and essential to the whole idea. The god of the OP is not one of reason, rationality or evidence. A search for objective evidence of a "superpowered invisible overlord" is a fool's errand.
 
SezMe said:
Yes, absolutely. The core of the god in the OP is faith. It is central and essential to the whole idea. The god of the OP is not one of reason, rationality or evidence. A search for objective evidence of a "superpowered invisible overlord" is a fool's errand.
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Well, a search for objective evidence of everything is a fool's errand and not just limited to god. It goes for all variants of objective evidence for/of everything :)
 
Vortigern99 said:
Meanwhile, I'll be the first among atheists to admit/allow/confess that I perceive some kind of presence or elusive being seemingly fleeting at the edges of my mind. But knowing what I know of human behavior, I think what many people are convinced is a divine presence residing "behind human consciousness" is little more than our evolved instinct to attribute agency to the events we see around us (a useful attribute for hunters following prey on the savannah), combined with our minds' tendency to impose patterns on meaningless chaos.

Match those shared, inherited instincts with our desire for love and companionship, our need to understand the world around us, our urge toward social and personal justice, and society's requirement of an inarguable authority figure, and we see the factors that led to the invention of the gods.

There's truth in that; I only wish I could express it more eloquently.
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I think you put that very well indeed.
:thumbsup:
 
Vortigern99 said:
...

Meanwhile, I'll be the first among atheists to admit/allow/confess that I perceive some kind of presence or elusive being seemingly fleeting at the edges of my mind. But knowing what I know of human behavior, I think what many people are convinced is a divine presence residing "behind human consciousness" is little more than our evolved instinct to attribute agency to the events we see around us (a useful attribute for hunters following prey on the savannah), combined with our minds' tendency to impose patterns on meaningless chaos.

Match those shared, inherited instincts with our desire for love and companionship, our need to understand the world around us, our urge toward social and personal justice, and society's requirement of an inarguable authority figure, and we see the factors that led to the invention of the gods.

There's truth in that; I only wish I could express it more eloquently.
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Replace the gods with objective ethics and rationalism and you can see the drive in some atheists to couple objective evidence with objective ethics. In other words if ethics is subjective, objective evidence doesn't work on ethics, because you can only use objective ethics on that which is objective.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Meanwhile, I'll be the first among atheists to admit/allow/confess that I perceive some...

There's truth in that; I only wish I could express it more eloquently.
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I though that was nicely, and eloquently put, in it's entirety.

I think Dawkins referred to religion as a "mind virus", though I don't know if he was the first. Also studied it as a powerful, self-replicating meme. Religions come and go, but the survivors tend to be the "fittest", and hence the most virulent, over time.

To carry the analogy further, could not your "perception" be a lasting scar from a previous infection? Something like the way some people carry smallpox scars?

Just a thought...
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Replace the gods with objective ethics and rationalism and you can see the drive in some atheists to couple objective evidence with objective ethics. In other words if ethics is subjective, objective evidence doesn't work on ethics, because you can only use objective ethics on that which is objective.
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Except when it can be objectively demonstrated that (for instance) societal concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, in fact, subjective, varying from society to society and over time (even within the same society).
 
Slowvehicle said:
Except when it can be objectively demonstrated that (for instance) societal concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, in fact, subjective, varying from society to society and over time (even within the same society).
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In fact, if you take any act, no matter how evil it seems to you, you can probably find some group of people who do that "evil" act as an act of faith.
 
I was a theist and then an atheist for the past four decades. Recently I found the answer, for myself. I read the book Journey Of Souls by Michael Newton and it has changed my way of thinking. In it he describes how his clients were hypnotised and regressed. All of them said that we start off as one soul. When we are born, we leave 20% of our soul 'up there' and bring 80% into the new born. When we die, our soul rejoins the part of the soul we left behind.... i.e.... One becomes two then two becomes one.
I didn't really understand this until I read the gospel of Thomas, which was not included in the bible. In it Jesus says... When one becomes two and two becomes one what will you do.
Also in the gospel of Mary which again wasn't in the bible the first six pages are missing, it goes on to say (page seven) now that you have explained everything....... what a shame we will never know what Jesus explained about the system.
I do now believe that Jesus existed but still don't believe that he was resurrected because how can a three day rotting body come alive? These are just my opinions
 
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mstricky said:
In it he describes how his clients were hypnotised and regressed. All of them said that we start off as one soul. When we are born, we leave 20% of our soul 'up there' and bring 80% into the new born. When we die, our soul rejoins the part of the soul we left behind.... i.e.... One becomes two then two becomes one.
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That certainly would be cool.

As a classicist, my obvious question is: How might that work?
 
mstricky said:
I was a theist and then an atheist for the past four decades. Recently I found the answer, for myself. I read the book Journey Of Souls by Michael Newton and it has changed my way of thinking. In it he describes how his clients were hypnotised and regressed. All of them said that we start off as one soul.
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How many of his clients reported having alter egos? And how many reported satanic ritual abuse? The evidence strongly suggests that with these "therapies", patients report whatever pet peeve the therapist has.
 
Hello --

I appreciate Vortigern99's invitation to submit to this thread what has inadvertently developed into a virtual essay of mine. It's hard to say if this is really a single essay or a series of small surveys on various related cultural/textual/historical patterns. Again, though, this is not geared toward any sort of confirmation of any one creed's concept of the what/who for deity. It is, instead, an overview of those historic patterns that appear to point to some sort of extra-human consciousness that has not been adequately "unwrapped" but that does appear to have (occasional) impact on specific individuals more than on humanity as a whole.

To be user-friendly, I've decided it's more manageable for readers here if I split this up into 12 bite-size installments rather than dumping the entire monster on you at a go. I'll be submitting each of the 12 installments every other day in order to facilitate breathing space -- and the opportunity for some sort of ongoing discussion -- for each installment over a period of roughly 48 hours each.

Accordingly, here is the first installment:

=======================



The human brain, belief/(delusion?) & all that



PREAMBLE

For me, it all starts with reading. I have always been a compulsive and omniverous reader since before grade school. And I spend time comparing things a lot -- historical patterns, texts, social reformers, everything.

Personally, I don't ascribe to any one creed/religion, and I am, furthermore, skeptical of many a religion's claims, including those of the Judaic-Christian-Islamic orbit. I do, though, not rule out the possibility of some kind of extra-dimensional presence that certain especially acute sensibilities may have glimpsed in the past. The question is if that presence is only inside their own (deluded?) heads, or if they're responding to something that is external and therefore real. I don't pretend to be able to answer that question. But to be candid, I don't think anyone else today can really honestly answer that question yet either. Many a future research project into the mechanisms of the human brain will be needed far into this century and beyond, most probably, before we can fully understand its workings well enough to know when it is concocting a mere delusion and when it's responding to something external. Only when we understand the mechanisms of the brain faaaaaaaar better than we do today will we even begin to barely comprehend just what was going on inside the heads of some of those "acute sensibilities" of the past.

It's still interesting to see which gods, whether concocted or not (we simply don't know which), might -- theoretically -- emerge as the more useful, viable -- whatever -- when scrutinized through a 21st-century lens. Whatever the "god"/"presence" is that some visionaries of the past may have glimpsed, I don't think it likely that this "presence" has any kind of active power over events on Earth. If it has any influence at all, it's more likely to be some kind of modest consciousness-raising inside certain isolated acutely sensitive minds rather than any physical dominance over any external events. The latter notion is just too replete with too many internal contradictions.

That said, I'm going quite a bit overboard here -- no question -- with certain speculations on just how the kind of consciousness-raising that I describe might really operate. In this overview, which is strictly speculative on my part, of course, certain concepts relating to this "presence" may emerge as more viable than others. Naturally, few posters will have time to read this (it's a slap-dash compendium of some fairly random jottings that I've assembled here and there on my PC over the past ten years or so), but still it's time for a relatively serious retrospective like this one.

Here goes!



======================

Cheers,

Stone
 
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