Searching for GOD...

[Dicky Underpants]

Searching for GOD...

Why?

ippy

Humans look for explanations - for the nature of life and the origins of the universe. Above all, perhaps, to find an answer for their sufferings. The biochemist Jacques Monod said (decades ago) that human beings seem to have evolved with intrinsic propensities like these, but though such propensities may exist, it does not therefore mean there are 'supernatural' answers to these questions. And a time comes when many of us realise that such answers are not forthcoming. Some get to that point very quickly, and maybe save themselves a lot of trouble.  But if one 'goes through the mill' one's reasoning certainly gains a degree of reinforcement!

[wigginhall]

To try and help Alan, morality as I understand it is subjective, existence as I understand it does not have a hierarchy, ergo the OED definition does not make sense to me any more than a four sided triangle. It is precisely definitional to me and that was the point being made.

That point about hierarchy is interesting, as it leads to the 'supreme being' sense of God in the Abrahamics, whereas some Eastern religions are based more on the 'pure Self' idea, or Brahman.  Well, pure Self is probably not noticeably clearer, although it is sometimes taken as pure awareness.  But, confusingly, there seem to be overlaps, you sometimes get a sense of pure Self in Christian thought, and in Sufism.  Buddhism also has no-self, (and no God), just to add spice.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The problem with this analysis, torri, is that there are plenty of people who state that they were 'found' by God rather than 'finding' him.  In other words, there was no "response from within an individual's mind that addresses emotional needs within the individual".  At the same time, there are those who state that they spent years searching for God, without success, until they stopped specifying hgowthey felt that God ought to appear or realte to them.

Hope

Your response to torri reflects the contradictory messages one gets from the Bible itself. There are indeed texts which state such ideas as "No man can come to God except the Father draw him", whereas others indicate that one must continually reach out and search (the latter approach seems to be the one BA advocates when he is telling non-believers what they are doing wrong). However, one simply has to live one's life - if reaching out to God over a long period of time brings no response, and neither does he 'put in an appearance', all one can do is get on with living and stop wasting time worrying about whether such a being exists.
In short, torri's analysis remains correct - and so does Len's.

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

[Dicky Underpants]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

I have explained my attitude to this a number of times, and can only speak from the deepest subjective experience. Only for a brief period in my late teens was I a 'fair-weather atheist' - through most of my life up to about 25 or so years ago, I would have described my attitude to life as 'spiritual', though not in any restrictive sense. I believed that all major world religions had something of the truth. In short, I was not "goddodging" - the very reverse. But later profound life experiences have made me realise that my previous attitude was ultimately false.

Those who claim genuine godseeking obviously have to base their ideas on something which they have gained either from religious texts or from what they have been told about religion by supposed authorities on the same. If ultimately they find all they have been led to believe, sense, intuit, and expect results in a huge and silent void, you can hardly expect such people to keep clutching out at straws or nebulous hopes and fantasies.

[Dicky Underpants]

To try and help Alan, morality as I understand it is subjective, existence as I understand it does not have a hierarchy, ergo the OED definition does not make sense to me any more than a four sided triangle. It is precisely definitional to me and that was the point being made.

That point about hierarchy is interesting, as it leads to the 'supreme being' sense of God in the Abrahamics, whereas some Eastern religions are based more on the 'pure Self' idea, or Brahman.  Well, pure Self is probably not noticeably clearer, although it is sometimes taken as pure awareness.  But, confusingly, there seem to be overlaps, you sometimes get a sense of pure Self in Christian thought, and in Sufism.  Buddhism also has no-self, (and no God), just to add spice.

wiggi

There are overlaps, but I wonder how much you can believe in those overlaps in any way accord with the majority of Christian doctrine, or the gospels themselves? Maybe monks and nuns experience something of this 'no-self' idea (Thomas Merton), but I really wonder how they come to reconcile this with the symbols of Christianity with Christ hanging there on the cross before them to remind them of complex doctrines like the Atonement, the Sacred Heart (Urggh!) or the idea of the Incarnate God being also the creator God. All the latter seem designed to confuse the quiet mind.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

I have explained my attitude to this a number of times, and can only speak from the deepest subjective experience. Only for a brief period in my late teens was I a 'fair-weather atheist' - through most of my life up to about 25 or so years ago, I would have described my attitude to life as 'spiritual', though not in any restrictive sense. I believed that all major world religions had something of the truth. In short, I was not "goddodging" - the very reverse. But later profound life experiences have made me realise that my previous attitude was ultimately false.

Those who claim genuine godseeking obviously have to base their ideas on something which they have gained either from religious texts or from what they have been told about religion by supposed authorities on the same. If ultimately they find all they have been led to believe, sense, intuit, and expect results in a huge and silent void, you can hardly expect such people to keep clutching out at straws or nebulous hopes and fantasies.

I suppose you could have an idea of God which is frustrated by the reality of God not fulfilling expectations rather than God not existing.

Some accept a life long search for God, presumably to quote Waugh on the strength of the merest ''twitch of the thread.''

I don't know of many on this board who have encountered ''The abyss'' or huge and silent void and whenever I relate the experience of some French existentialists few are interested.

Also undiscussed and shyed from is goddodging since biblical and subsequent documented Christian encounters with God are not all initially or uniformly joyous.

[Gordon]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

Does not compute, Vlad, in that to dodge anything (as in deliberately avoid) there surely needs to be a 'something' that has recognisable attributes that can be detected in the first place, in order for any successful dodging to be properly planned: and in the case of 'God' there isn't!

[Dicky Underpants]

I don't know of many on this board who have encountered ''The abyss'' or huge and silent void and whenever I relate the experience of some French existentialists few are interested.

Also undiscussed and shyed from is goddodging since biblical and subsequent documented Christian encounters with God are not all initially or uniformly joyous.

You can't possibly know who has encountered such things or not from just what people type here - how the hell would you know what depths of despair any poster has experienced? What extreme presumption on your part to think that you could make such a judgment. As for the French existentialists, I don't ultimately trust them as describing the realities of the human condition (I trust Simone de Beauvoir a bit more than Sartre, the latter being a pretty good novelist but a highly suspect philosopher)

As for 'encounters with God being not all initially or uniformly joyous' you have conceded that you think something has to be communicated. And if nothing?

[Shaker]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

But the latter depends upon believing that there's something in the first place to dodge, which doesn't apply to atheists - as you yourself point out.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

Does not compute, Vlad, in that to dodge anything (as in deliberately avoid) there surely needs to be a 'something' that has recognisable attributes that can be detected in the first place, in order for any successful dodging to be properly planned: and in the case of 'God' there isn't!

You can dodge ideas which are unpalatable.Gordon.
The recognisable attributes is the obvious idea that were one to let God into one's thinking we would then be well out of the comfort,self righteous zone.

[Shaker]

You can dodge ideas which are unpalatable.Gordon.

You can indeed, but you can't dodge something you don't believe is there in the first instance Vladster.

[Dicky Underpants]

You can dodge ideas which are unpalatable.Gordon.
The recognisable attributes is the obvious idea that were one to let God into one's thinking we would then be well out of the comfort,self righteous zone.

You could equally say that you  were providing yourself with your own private comforter.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

But the latter depends upon believing that there's something in the first place to dodge, which doesn't apply to atheists - as you yourself point out.

Can an atheist genuinely seek God, Shakes.........and how?
For my own part I think psychologically many are in the ''Moses basket'' phase.....In ''De Nile'' over goddodging.

[Shaker]

Can an atheist genuinely seek God, Shakes.........and how?

An atheist? No.

To seek God you would have to seriously entertain the possibility that there might be such a thing, which takes you out of atheistic territory AFAIC. An atheist by definition doesn't believe that there are any gods. If you do what I have never been able to do and take the potential existence of such things seriously, then, while there may not yet be any word for it that I'm aware of, I don't think you can really be regarded as an atheist any more.

For my own part I think psychologically many are in the ''Moses basket'' phase.....In ''De Nile'' over goddodging.

Doubtless, but that's just some shit you've made up to make yourself feel superior to the antitheists and the philosophical materialists that have you wetting yourself on a daily basis.

I notice that you've never once provided a solitary scrap of evidence for this so-called "goddoging" that you keep referring to.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You can dodge ideas which are unpalatable.Gordon.
The recognisable attributes is the obvious idea that were one to let God into one's thinking we would then be well out of the comfort,self righteous zone.

You could equally say that you  were providing yourself with your own private comforter.

You might but I can't since I realised along with Augustine and others that I was Goddodging to protect my comfort self righteous zone. At which point God becomes the honest necessity.

[Gordon]

What about goddodging?. Many or most atheists on here state they can't be dodging something they don't believe in. Can they subsequently claim genuine godseeking?

If you can seek God you can also dodge God.

Does not compute, Vlad, in that to dodge anything (as in deliberately avoid) there surely needs to be a 'something' that has recognisable attributes that can be detected in the first place, in order for any successful dodging to be properly planned: and in the case of 'God' there isn't!

You can dodge ideas which are unpalatable.Gordon.
The recognisable attributes is the obvious idea that were one to let God into one's thinking we would then be well out of the comfort,self righteous zone.

I don't find the idea of 'God' to be 'unpalatable', Vlad - I find it to be meaningless.

I'm relation to your comment about attributes - you seem to be talking about how people might react as opposed to what detectable attributes your 'God' possesses (in order for these to be 'dodged')

[Walt Zingmatilder]

.

Doubtless, but that's just some shit you've made up to make yourself feel superior to the antitheists and the philosophical materialists that have you wetting yourself on a daily basis.

[/quote]
Far be it from me to question your superiority My lord but I believe I have already alluded to my own and others confessed Goddodging.

I take exceptional and almost pathological exception to Jesus, the Gospel and the idea of repentance as evidence of Goddodging.

[Shaker]

Far be it from me to question your superiority My lord but I believe I have already alluded to my own and others confessed Goddodging.

Your own, possibly. That of others, I've no idea. To "dodge" God requires one to believe in God, that's the point.

I take exceptional and almost pathological exception to Jesus, the Gospel and the idea of repentance as evidence of Goddodging.

You'll survive.

[Alan Burns]

Searching for GOD...

Why?

ippy

To help you find your true home in Heaven. 

[Alan Burns]

That takes no account of people who pray and get no response at all, neither a yes nor a no, just a zero response. It also suggests that God is a response from within the believers mind that addresses emotional needs within the individual. This rationale accounts for the diversity of theist beliefs over time and across cultures and from person to person. It also accounts for why people can 'find' God by some process of inner reflection driven by spiritual need, but when we look using hard  evidence of a cosmic creator with a determinedly dispassionate ethos there is nothing there. This suggests God is a psychological response within the minds of believers.

God does not always answer prayers directly, but when He does, the result can be truly unbelievable to those who have no faith.  I have heard many genuine witnesses who can testify to amazing physical (not psychological) responses to prayer.  One of the most recent witness stories I heard came directly from Eleanor Mumford, (mother of Markus, of Mumford and Sons).  She recalled a time when she came across a young mother who had recently given birth to a baby daughter.  She tried to congratulate the mother on her new baby, but found that she was severely depressed, because her daughter had been born with several problems including a cleft palate which made the baby look particularly ugly.  Eleanor felt God asking her to pray over this woman and her child, but this was something which she had never done before, but she took a step in faith and said a prayer over them.  The baby's face miraculously healed before their eyes, and when the baby was inspected in hospital, it was found that all the other problems had gone too. 

So here you have a personal witness - you can either accuse her of lying, say she was deluded, or accept the truth.

[Shaker]

God does not always answer prayers directly, but when He does, the result can be truly unbelievable to those who have no faith.  I have heard many genuine witnesses who can testify to amazing physical (not psychological) responses to prayer.  One of the most recent witness stories I heard came directly from Eleanor Mumford, (mother of Markus, of Mumford and Sons).  She recalled a time when she came across a young mother who had recently given birth to a baby daughter.  She tried to congratulate the mother on her new baby, but found that she was severely depressed, because her daughter had been born with several problems including a cleft palate which made the baby look particularly ugly.  Eleanor felt God asking her to pray over this woman and her child, but this was something which she hav never done before, but she took a step in faith and said a prayer over them.  The baby's face miraculously healed before their eyes, and when the baby was inspected in hospital, it was found that all the other problems had gone too. 

So here you have a personal witness - you can either accuse her of lying, say she was deluded, or accept the truth.

Provide the evidence of this assertion, Al. You're making a specific, concrete claim about a testable state of affairs.

It's not her I'd call a liar - it's you.

[Shaker]

Well?

[Shaker]

Not going to be forthcoming, is it Alan? I mean specific details of an event which, if it had ever actually happened, would have made not just national but international news and would have been the subject of intense scrutiny from the medical profession all over the entire planet. Name of the woman, name of the child, name and location of the hospital in which this so-called examination allegedly occurred ... absolutely none of these will be forthcoming, will they Alan?

[Shaker]

A familiar story ... 

[trippymonkey]

Surely we'd have ALL heard of this & it been world wide news ?!!?!?!?!?