Searching for GOD...

[jeremyp]

It will not be hard then for you to give examples of things people believe that aren’t true

Your lack of self awareness is alarming.

There are people who believe that God is Great and Mohammed is his prophet. Are they believing something that isn't true, in your opinion? Can you explain why an outside observer should treat the beliefs of Christians any more seriously than those of the followers of Islam?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

It will not be hard then for you to give examples of things people believe that aren’t true.

How about all the gods in which other people believe but you don't?   

[Alan Burns]

So they've basically joined a cult.

No one can describe mainstream Christianity as a cult.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No one can describe mainstream Christianity as a cult.

Why not?

[Nearly Sane]

No one can describe mainstream Christianity as a cult.

It's a cult

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I suspect that Vlad would assert that these are somehow not the equivalent to 'a belief in God The son'. If he does, then I hope that he makes clear what he sees as the difference

Well firstly, Outrider places these, expanding on Maeght in the category of things that are not true so presumably they have been disproved. Is God in that category? I don’t think so.

None of them seem to address the fundamental as say, theism or materialistic naturalism. They are not Weltbilt as it were.

Since they are trivial This looks like a deliberate attempt to trivialise God by association.

[Nearly Sane]

Well firstly, Outrider places these, expanding on Maeght in the category of things that are not true so presumably they have been disproved. Is God in that category? I don’t think so.

None of them seem to address the fundamental as say, theism or materialistic naturalism. They are not Weltbilt as it were.

Since they are trivial This looks like a deliberate attempt to trivialise God by association.

Oh look special pleading. Oddly saying that the more important you think a thing is, the less evidence is important.

[jeremyp]

No one can describe mainstream Christianity as a cult.

What's the difference between a cult and a mainstream religion? Is it just the popularity of the latter?

[jeremyp]

Oh look special pleading. Oddly saying that the more important you think a thing is, the less evidence is important.

Ah, I see you haven't heard about the incident involving William Lane "Low Bar" Craig. In a video podcast about a year ago, he literally argued exactly that. He said that, since the consequences of belief in Christianity are eternal life or not, we should accept almost zero evidence.

Yes, it is a restatement of Pascal's Wager.

[Nearly Sane]

Ah, I see you haven't heard about the incident involving William Lane "Low Bar" Craig. In a video podcast about a year ago, he literally argued exactly that. He said that, since the consequences of belief in Christianity are eternal life or not, we should accept almost zero evidence.

Yes, it is a restatement of Pascal's Wager.

A position that seems to be being echoed currently by Jordan Peterson

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ok - one example I recall was on a TV program about all this when a group of people were taken out on a walk in the desert in the US under some pretext. They were all wearing bodycams and so everything they saw was recorded. On this walk they went past a staged situation where there was some 'keep out' tape, a few bits of metal and one person in a military uniform stood behind the tape. There was no explanation and no comment about it made by the TV people. A week later they were brought together again and as part of that they talked about what they saw. They agreed that they had seen wrecking of an crashed UFO that they had been threatened by armed guards and some had even seen alien bodies on the site. They were then showed the bodycam footage and found out they were wrong.

So are you saying that encountering Christ is a collective experience?
Did no one conclude that the wreckage could have been military? So the artifacts, the soldier, and the tape were ‘real’ or convincing, but the alien aspect was conjured by the minds of some but not all.

I can’t say any more than that really but the nearest thing I can offer is Derren Brown’s conversion of an audience member to Christianity. I understand the person “converted” realised later she had been manipulated and directed mentally. What went unsaid though was where Brown was directing the audience mentally given the elephant in the room. Namely that Brown is a professional television illusionist, so we have to question what of it was staged.

I was talking about personal testimony of visions of Jesus or similar not 'belief in God the Son'.

I’m still not clear what your understanding of the term vision is.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Oh look special pleading. Oddly saying that the more important you think a thing is, the less evidence is important.

I think you failed to see the elephant in the room namely Maeght and Outrider want us to compare God with things that have been disproved.

The more important it is the less trivial it is.

[Nearly Sane]

I think you failed to see the elephant in the room namely Maeght and Outrider want us to compare God with things that have been disproved.

The more important it is the less trivial it is.

Have all the things mentioned been disproved? Even if they were why believe something without evidence, and your last sentence is a truism which ignores that your position seems to be that because you seem to think something is important it needs less evidence

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So I'd say that the feeling you've had a personal encounter of some sort, or a vision, of someone who has been dead for around 2,000 years would be an 'unjustified false belief': I accept that someone may feel this has happened to them but I doubt that there belief is true unless they can validate in terms independent of themselves.

But I use the term encounter to differentiate the experience from the term belief and I would say people who have visions of Christ would say the same about visions.
I would also differentiate between faith which is dynamic in the way belief isn’t.

Example I believe Rishi Sunak is prime minister, I have no faith in him and I have never encountered his presence.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I think you failed to see the elephant in the room namely Maeght and Outrider want us to compare God with things that have been disproved.

The more important it is the less trivial it is.

No only do you straw man others here, you now seem to be straw manning yourself. What you actually said was:

It will not be hard then for you to give examples of things people believe that aren’t true or for you to demonstrate how a belief in God The son fits in with that.

What you were given therefore was exactly examples of things that “people believe aren’t true”.

And “God The son fits in with that” because some people find the justifying arguments for that assertion to be as absent or invalid as they find the justifying arguments for the assertions on the list to be absent or invalid. 

[Nearly Sane]

But I use the term encounter to differentiate the experience from the term belief and I would say people who have visions of Christ would say the same about visions.
I would also differentiate between faith which is dynamic in the way belief isn’t.

Example I believe Rishi Sunak is prime minister, I have no faith in him and I have never encountered his presence.

You are using the term encounter to beg the question.

[Dicky Underpants]

Not sure that describes the “emotionally needy”
CS Lewis describes his unemotional conversion on a bus to Whipsnade in Bedfordshire and others have converted in emotional states only brought on by the conviction that they needed to turn to God rather than any emotional crisis.
Jesus states that he will not turn away the person who turns to him.

Just for the record, C.S. Lewis describes his conversion into a "theist" at least two years before that, and in far more emotional terms. His final conversion into believing Jesus was the Son of God (and supposedly God the Son) did come on that bus trip, shortly after an odd conversation with a friend interested in the old myths of dying and resurrecting gods. The friend had said, without going into his reasoning for this assertion, that "oddly enough, it really seems to have happened once". That, apparently, was quite enough to convince our Jack, hook, line and sinker.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are using the term encounter to beg the question.

Not really I have an experience of encounter, which no one has been able to odd. Whether this is down to their incompetence, I wouldn’t like to say.

This Experience I find different from belief.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The implication was that was what some people on here thought. Recognising that we can all fool ourselves and believe in things which aren't true doesn't mean that it is correct to call those with religious beliefs or stories of their emotional conversions as being nutters.

Oi Hillside.

[Nearly Sane]

Not really I have an experience of encounter, which no one has been able to odd. Whether this is down to their incompetence, I wouldn’t like to say.

This Experience I find different from belief.

That's just assertion, and continuing begging the question.

[Dicky Underpants]

Not really I have an experience of encounter, which no one has been able to odd. Whether this is down to their incompetence, I wouldn’t like to say.

This Experience I find different from belief.

San Juan de la Cruz experienced himself "transformed into God". Is that going one better?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Not really I have an experience of encounter, which no one has been able to odd. Whether this is down to their incompetence, I wouldn’t like to say.

This Experience I find different from belief.

No, it's down to your inability to provide valid justifying reasons to demonstrate that you actually did "have an experience of an encounter" rather than that you just think you did.

I "have an experience of encounter" with leprechauns. Whether your refusal to accept this claim at face value is down to your incompetence I wouldn't like to say. Can you see anything wrong with this?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

AB,

No, it's down to your inability to provide valid justifying reasons to demonstrate that you actually did "have an experience of an encounter" rather than that you just think you did.

I "have an experience of encounter" with leprechauns. Whether your refusal to accept this claim at face value is down to your incompetence I wouldn't like to say. Can you see anything wrong with this?   

No, I think it might just be down to the failure of physicalism to which you appeal to.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No, I think it might just be down to the failure of physicalism to which you appeal to.

More lying isn't helping you here.

I don't believe you had an "encounter" with a god because your justifying reasoning for that claim is absent or invalid.

You don't believe I have an encounter with leprechauns because my justifying reasoning for that claim is absent or invalid.

Our reasoning is the same. QED

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

More lying isn't helping you here.

I don't believe you had an "encounter" with a god because your justifying reasoning for that claim is absent or invalid.

You don't believe I have an encounter with leprechauns because my justifying reasoning for that claim is absent or invalid.

Our reasoning is the same. QED

 

The only thing that makes my belief unjustified is if there isn't a God. And since you are accusing me of unjustified belief, you are saying there is no God.

But since this about your belief. What makes your belief justified?