What are your religious/spiritual beliefs?

[gibran2]

"How do you acquire empirical evidence? I would assume through your senses. The acquisition of empirical evidence and subsequent mental processing of that evidence are subjective experiences."

I'm following what your trying to say with this statement but I find it impossible to deny the objectivity of empirical knowledge. All I'm asking for is a shred of scientific data that supports the existence of god or supernatural being or whatever you want to call.

I’m not claiming that there is evidence for God, either scientific or otherwise. What I’m claiming is quite the opposite, and I go even further:

There is no evidence that objective reality as we understand it exists at all.

 

[jbark]

"How do you acquire empirical evidence? I would assume through your senses. The acquisition of empirical evidence and subsequent mental processing of that evidence are subjective experiences."

I'm following what your trying to say with this statement but I find it impossible to deny the objectivity of empirical knowledge. All I'm asking for is a shred of scientific data that supports the existence of god or supernatural being or whatever you want to call.

I’m not claiming that there is evidence for God, either scientific or otherwise. What I’m claiming is quite the opposite, and I go even further:

There is no evidence that objective reality as we understand it exists at all.

Here here - I fully agree!

However there is a little playground called "here & now" that has a set of rules that are consistent and reliable!

JBArk the child playing in the playground

 

[Saidin]

The questions aren't the assumption, Saidin (although they could arguably contain assumptions). The answer "god" is. A huge assumption. The biggest assumption. Maybe a correct assumption, but an assumption nevertheless.

True that the answer God is an assumption. But it is just a name that we give to the unknowable. In the video he used Nature, God or Spirit as interechangeable terms. There is no empirical proof of Its existence, unless you consider your own existence proof, which I personally do. I am It, and It is Me.

How does nature create the first person, I AM, out of nothing? There was nothing, then there was something, or there was always something. As for there being a million other answers to that question...I am having trouble thinking of another one, could you help me out?

Just because we do not know what the first cause is that does not mean that we should say God is the first cause

I agree, we do not have to say that God/Nature/Spirit is the first cause, but it does create a sort of delima...at some point we have to take into consideration something that exists outside our ability to understand, whatever label you want to put on it. Emptyness works I suppose.

It comes down to the realization that something must have always existed, otherwise it only leads to infinite regressive madness. It is like two mirrors facing eachother, one can never find the beginning...

 

[jbark]

Saidin wrote:

There is no empirical proof of Its existence, unless you consider your own existence proof, which I personally do. I am It, and It is Me.

I am currently typing a trip report about an experience with 4 hits of very strong acid I did last friday (my first time). "I am It and It is Me" pretty much sums it up - so i know where you are coming from. It was an ego shattering mind blowing certainty that I was the beginningtheendandeverythinginbetween. GOD. ME. IT. ALL. ONE.

Still trying to reconcile this solipsistic certainty with my conscious certainty that others do really exist and are not simply constructs of my GODmind (we all know what dangerous territory this is, and where it can lead)... more to follow.

As for there being a million other answers to that question...I am having trouble thinking of another one, could you help me out?

Hyperbole. There are actually only 465 389 other answers , and here are some:

Void
endless recursion (in which we are a mere insignificant probablistic blip)
construct of an alien intelligence (or mind(s))
this is an elaborate game you are playing from some other conscious vantage
42

i won't bore you by listing the other 465 384 reasons...:d

8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

BTW, I absolutely love this, and am claiming it as my own:

It comes down to the realization that something must have always existed, otherwise it only leads to infinite regressive madness. It is like two mirrors facing each other, one can never find the beginning...

When i was younger I believed that the mirror trick was the face of god, and audio feedback from a mic and a set of speakers was his voice. Somehow I managed to believe this without actually believing in god. The mind is a strange creature.

JBArk

 

[Saidin]

Hyperbole. There are actually only 465 389 other answers , and here are some:

Void
endless recursion (in which we are a mere insignificant probablistic blip)
construct of an alien intelligence (or mind(s))
this is an elaborate game you are playing from some other conscious vantage
42

Why did the void become something? What was the mechanism for this?
Where did the aliens come from?
Where is that other conscious vantage, where did it come from?

Since 42 is he answer to everything, I have no rebuttal to that...so you got me there! :lol:

It is an infinite regression, thus something has to have always existed. Whether you call it God, or Nature, or Eternity it does not matter.

 

[jbark]

Saidin wrote:

It is an infinite regression, thus something has to have always existed. Whether you call it God, or Nature, or Eternity it does not matter.

Not necessarily. "Always" is a temporal designation. If time is an illusion, then "always" has no meaning... and existence itself, being a temporal evolution as well, has no meaning for us or god or nature or eternity.

bit of a weird loophole, but a hole nonetheless...

did I just use your logic to prove the non-existence of everything...?

JBArk

 

[eagleeyes]

i was an atheist until i realized i was a god