Searching for GOD...

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

I can see into the future Gabriella, Susan clarifies her mailing for you and then you'll want the clarification clarified and thereafter clarifying the clarification, and on and on and on, whatever, you'll stick with your zero evidenced supernatural based belief no matter what.

And what would you consider as evidence for Gabriella's belief?

That's fine if that's your choice and you should always be free to think and believe whatever you like; the kind of superstition based thinking you go for doesn't make any sense to me, but there you go we're all different.

Then perhaps it's better to educate yourself about what the belief actually entails before passing judgement rather than falling for the carricature.

[ippy]

If, by facing reality you are implying that Gabriella's faith is therefore demonstrably wrong, then please outline why.

Alternatively, you can outline why your way of viewing things (which presumably requires no faith at all) is the only correct way to approach things.

Back to the teapot Sword, there's a little more than a touch of the NPF there again.

The theory of this god of yours holds no more weight than the existence of the teapot how would anyone prove the correct way would be either the teapot or this god thing/idea you hold in your imagination? As an idea of course.

ippy

[SusanDoris]

Well, folks, I will take a while to write replies-  on a doc first, review and post! I hope they will be worth the wait!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

You can assert that this is what is happening. That is your opinion. You are entitled to it.

No, it’s a fact – I can cite various examples of it if you want me to. Indeed you went off on one a while back about sending your posts to me before editing or some such. So far as I recall in our exchanges I’ve used only arguments – and on several occasions you’ve ignored them in favour of a, “well if you don’t like the way I phrase my answers then…” type response. The obvious example is when I asked you how you think statement A led to statement B, you told me all about statement A, then when I asked again you went down the, “well if you don’t like my answer then” line. Similarly I've explained why "supernatural" isn't possible/not possible apt, only for you to dance around it rather than engage with it. 

That seems evasive to me, but whether or not deliberately so I can’t tell.   

If someone had a gun to my head I would tell them what i think they want to hear to not shoot me. Or alternatively I may not be that bothered about being shot and dying and I would argue that it is not a binary choice.

…and speaking of evasion.

ETA: Evasion - seems like that is your word for me not saying what you want me to say.

And that’s misrepresentation. I have no preference about how you answer a question – the evasiveness concerns not answering it all, generally by posting an irrelevance instead. 

I can't figure out why that is a bad thing. Is it not doing me any favours? Will I be subject to vitriol? Oh no.

Not from me, no – I prefer reason and argument.

So back to cases, are we to take it that you do have a faith belief that “God” exists outside of stories in a book or you don’t?

If you don’t want to answer that, just say so – it’ll save time at least. 

[ippy]

And what would you consider as evidence for Gabriella's belief?
Then perhaps it's better to educate yourself about what the belief actually entails before passing judgement rather than falling for the carricature.

Been there done that one, again, Sword the onus is on the believers to present the facts, if you have any, about this god figure of yours, it's in shorthand the NPF as I'm sure you must know.

ippy 

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

I apologise if you've covered this before but may I ask what it is about the supernatural/God that attracts you - in what ways have you benefited from your leap of faith?

Sorry Bramble - I have to go - as have been on here way too long the past few days and am neglecting the family. I will come back to your question either late in the evening or early in the morning in the next few days. I did outline some benefits I experienced on posts e.g. #21095 and #21156,  #21157 #21174. There are lots more but don't have time to find them for you now.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

No, it’s a fact – I can cite various examples of it if you want me to. Indeed you went off on one a while back about sending your posts to me before editing or some such. So far as I recall in our exchanges I’ve used only arguments – and on several occasions you’ve ignored them in favour of a, “well if you don’t like the way I phrase my answers then…” type response. The obvious example is when I asked you how you think statement A led to statement B, you told me all about statement A, then when I asked again you went down the, “well if you don’t like my answer then” line. Similarly I've explained why "supernatural" isn't possible/not possible apt, only for you to dance around it rather than engage with it. 

That seems evasive to me, but whether or not deliberately so I can’t tell.   

…and speaking of evasion.

And that’s misrepresentation. I have no preference about how you answer a question – the evasiveness concerns not answering it all, generally by posting an irrelevance instead. 

Not from me, no – I prefer reason and argument.

So back to cases, are we to take it that you do have a faith belief that “God” exists outside of stories in a book or you don’t?

If you don’t want to answer that, just say so – it’ll save time at least.

Sorry, same response to you as to Bramble. I have to go. And you are just repeating your assertions as well as repeating questions that have been asked and answered. I will have to come back to you to continue the no you haven't/ yes I have/ fact /assertion dance for the next 20 pages at a later date.

[Bramble]

Sorry Bramble - I have to go - as have been on here way too long the past few days and am neglecting the family. I will come back to your question either late in the evening or early in the morning in the next few days. I did outline some benefits I experienced on posts e.g. #21095 and #21156,  #21157 #21174. There are lots more but don't have time to find them for you now.

Thanks. So would it be fair to say that your faith primarily helps provide structure, control and order in your life and that without it you'd struggle with self-discipline?

[SusanDoris]

#21,382
Quote from: Gabriella on Today at 03:41:50 PM
You can say I don't know and stop there. Or you can take a leap of faith. It's up to the individual.
But then, like AB, you have to put on large, opaque, metaphorical blinkers since you do not want to face reality.
 I have put this here so I can see (i.e. hear) what I said.

I don't know what you mean by "reality" when you say I am not accepting "reality" so I can't answer your question and I don't want to assume you meant something that you didn't. If you don't want to clarify that's fine. Maybe you weren't interested in a response and were just stating your opinion.

In our world, the galaxy and the universe, there has been no god ever. That is what I see as reality. I fully appreciate that the correct and logical way to think about this means that I must allow for the vanishingly small possibility or probability, whichever is the better word to use here, that one god might one day appear and be found to be objective.

 To have faith in one, i.e. a god, is an absolute right for anyone, but having long ago removed my metaphorical, very small, almost transparent blinkers, I am confident that I see reality as it is.

I am always interested in responses – that is why I spend as much time as I do on the few forums I belong to. They take the place of many things I cannot do.

That didn't take too long after all!

[Rhiannon]

AB's faith and Gabriella's bear little resemblance to each other.

[ippy]

AB's faith and Gabriella's bear little resemblance to each other.

Both based on faulty reasoning?

ippy

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

AB's faith and Gabriella's bear little resemblance to each other.

That’s true – Gabriella is coy about whether her faith belief concerns what she perceives to be a fact or a fiction, but AB makes various “true for you too” assertions whereas Gabriella confines herself to a “true for me only” proposition.

That said, there still seems to me to be the same substrate for each – ie, faith. Faith is epistemically worthless but even if nonetheless I had a really strong faith belief about something I’d still think that there’d be no way to demonstrate it even to my own satisfaction.

So far as I can tell, Gabriella’s response is effectively that the question really doesn’t matter much – if the belief provides “meaning”, “benefit” etc then whether real outside the pages of a book or not doesn’t trouble her. (I might have got this wrong, but it’s as close as I can get.)

If that’s right, I’m not sure that I believe it though. If someone thinks she need a sort of celestial policeman to tell her when to eat and so forth, then it seems to me that she must also think the policeman to be real otherwise where would the authority lie? Conversely I suppose if you don’t think he’s real but is just a useful device to illustrate some moral philosophy, you’d have to accept too the possibility at least of subsequent reasoning that invalidated that written in his “holy” book – something that as I understand it religionists are generally reluctant to do.

Ah well, perhaps we’ll be told which it is in due course…       

[bluehillside Retd.]

ippy,

Both based on faulty reasoning?

Dammit man, how come it took you just five words to say what it took me five paras to say? 

[ippy]

ippy,

Dammit man, how come it took you just five words to say what it took me five paras to say? 

Sorry about that Blue, now about this UY**&RD£$^&^&, when did you first get into this?

ippy

P S Oh yes I forgot to mention it did take me an hour to look up the spelling.

[torridon]

AB's faith and Gabriella's bear little resemblance to each other.

It's good that we have diversity, a monochrome world would be boring.  I quite like Gabriella's notion of the undefinability of God, that creates a space free from challenges of correct/incorrect right path/wrong path wherein people so inclined can give expression to their yearning for the divine.  I think this longing for god is deeply rooted in human nature hence religions haven't disappeared post-Darwin, and the subtle trick lies in realising we have to let go of simplistic notions of a supreme being out there requiring worship but rather embrace the fact that divine-ness lies in the longing itself and to give expression to that longing is to become the divine. It is not the destination that counts, but rather the journey there.

[ekim]

It's good that we have diversity, a monochrome world would be boring.  I quite like Gabriella's notion of the undefinability of God, that creates a space free from challenges of correct/incorrect right path/wrong path wherein people so inclined can give expression to their yearning for the divine.  I think this longing for god is deeply rooted in human nature hence religions haven't disappeared post-Darwin, and the subtle trick lies in realising we have to let go of simplistic notions of a supreme being out there requiring worship but rather embrace the fact that divine-ness lies in the longing itself and to give expression to that longing is to become the divine. It is not the destination that counts, but rather the journey there.

That's a fair way of putting it.  I believe the origin of the word 'god' derives from a word meaning 'that which is invoked' and there are many qualities which people may seek to invoke.  These qualities may be represented by a number of individual gods or, in the case of Gabriella, by one god with 99 attributes.  Religious scripture could be seen as containing methods to facilitate invocation.  Perhaps it was thought that focusing on one source (one god) was easier than spreading the attention to many sources (gods).  One of the troubles in the past has been that widespread illiteracy has allowed the literate power hungry to manipulate the system. 
Some see the situation as the source and destination as being the same and that there is no journey i.e. you are already there but failing to realise it.  The methods then tend to be about consciously remaining still so that what prevents realisation, dissipates.

[Rhiannon]

It's good that we have diversity, a monochrome world would be boring.  I quite like Gabriella's notion of the undefinability of God, that creates a space free from challenges of correct/incorrect right path/wrong path wherein people so inclined can give expression to their yearning for the divine.  I think this longing for god is deeply rooted in human nature hence religions haven't disappeared post-Darwin, and the subtle trick lies in realising we have to let go of simplistic notions of a supreme being out there requiring worship but rather embrace the fact that divine-ness lies in the longing itself and to give expression to that longing is to become the divine. It is not the destination that counts, but rather the journey there.

Another well put post. I think we have to reexamine the value of myth and what it teaches us about ourselves, and not be afraid of it. And you may remember I've argued for a secular understanding of sacredness, that some things are holy in and of themselves with no need for religion or the supernatural.

[Alan Burns]

But then, like AB, you have to put on large, opaque, metaphorical blinkers since you do not want to face reality.

Quite the opposite in fact.
With faith, the blinkers are removed and one can discover true purpose and meaning in everything.  Without faith, we all just exist as an accidental consequence in a meaningless, purposeless universe

[floo]

Quite the opposite in fact.
With faith, the blinkers are removed and one can discover true purpose and meaning in everything.  Without faith, we all just exist as an accidental consequence in a meaningless, purposeless universe

More likely, with faith the imagination takes over!

[Bramble]

It's good that we have diversity, a monochrome world would be boring.  I quite like Gabriella's notion of the undefinability of God, that creates a space free from challenges of correct/incorrect right path/wrong path wherein people so inclined can give expression to their yearning for the divine.  I think this longing for god is deeply rooted in human nature hence religions haven't disappeared post-Darwin, and the subtle trick lies in realising we have to let go of simplistic notions of a supreme being out there requiring worship but rather embrace the fact that divine-ness lies in the longing itself and to give expression to that longing is to become the divine. It is not the destination that counts, but rather the journey there.

The trouble is that the word God comes to us now as a fait accompli, fleshed out by centuries of religious idolatry. Human longing seeks resolution in many ways but when it is described as a God shaped hole it leaves open the possibility that God may turn out to be quite different from the image we are all brought up with. The hole itself may turn out to be illusory, taking God with it. Is the longing divine or just a human dis-ease? The very idea of divinity or sacredness arises when we divide up our experience in a judgemental way, simultaneously creating profanity. Perhaps this is the original sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

[Shaker]

Quite the opposite in fact.
With faith, the blinkers are removed and one can discover true purpose and meaning in everything.  Without faith, we all just exist as an accidental consequence in a meaningless, purposeless universe

Oh grow up, you blubbering poltroon.

Of course the universe as a whole is meaningless and pointless - universes aren't in that set of things to which meaning and point apply. Lives are (or can be) however; many if not most of us manage to find things which have meaning and point and purpose for us in our own individual lives. You should try it.

[Rhiannon]

Quite the opposite in fact.
With faith, the blinkers are removed and one can discover true purpose and meaning in everything.  Without faith, we all just exist as an accidental consequence in a meaningless, purposeless universe

What meaning does 'God' give to anything?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And you may remember I've argued for a secular understanding of sacredness, that some things are holy in and of themselves with no need for religion or the supernatural.

I'm afraid I can't. Could you repeat your argument here and now? It would be of interest.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

  I think this longing for god is deeply rooted in human nature hence religions haven't disappeared post-Darwin,

I'm wondering why those who think that the concerns over antitheists equating science and religion are ''straw men'' have missed this blatant statement equating Darwin with atheism.

[Rhiannon]

I'm afraid I can't. Could you repeat your argument here and now? It would be of interest.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11146.0