God doesn't seem to exist!

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Just for clarity, applying a methodological naturalist label to myself does not mean I am considering the possibility that God did it. I'm not. The term "God" has so much cultural baggage that even considering it drags along all that baggage. I don't just mean specific religious traditions, I mean the very idea that there is an entity. Our conception of "entity" is so bound up in what fits in our human brains that using it is pointless for discovering the truth.

I think it's better to just go with what we can actually figure out (within the limitations of our human brains) and let that knowledge pile up.

Here is an example:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/collision-theory-how-chemical-reactions-occur.html



"new bonds formed" is order

I agree that the concept of God carries so much cultural baggage. It is small wonder that people will say that God is only a concept. I think it is necessary to get away from that. Jesus (John Ch10 V0) says "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Think about a belief without all the baggage, which is nowhere spoken about in The Bible.

Sorry, that quote was just too good to miss.

I do ask you to consider that there are places where the logical human mind cannot go. That may be enough to convince you they do not exist. I look to go beyond those places, which are in the realm of spiritual experience.

I am very familiar with junior school chemistry. Both endothermic and exothermic reactions are entropic and are examples of the natural order not a contradiction of it.

Phooee! You must be very accustomed to bluffing your way around amongst the naïve and ignorant to think I'd fall for that.

I live 'IN' 'those' 'spiritual' 'places'.

Sad that those who restrain their lives

in mechanical cognition cannot go.

But even science shows why this is so.

And it's totally useless to try to explain this
to folks who never ever try to go 'there'.

Anyway, oh boy, are they missing out
on what they do not believe in; as the very
process of non-belief takes one to a prison of life..

I choose free with relative human free will; not all
folks develop

THAT; SADLY enough..

Those who seek find;
Those who do not;
do not;
It's like 1 plus 1.

Where one never finds
the
'other'.

Hi Fred, the spiritual is where I've found life and a life.

Yes, Grebs, but surely the advantage of being 'Spergic is to cut through the "cultural baggage" and home in on what it all means, really. God is, indeed, a concept; for without a concept it is entirely meaningless. Everything is meaningless without a concept. Even the word rabbit is meaningless without a concept of what a rabbit is.

"More abundant life" is entirely incomprehensible to a person who insists that they are just an accidental pile of chemicals except as an invitation to hedonistic indulgence.

Anyhow, I'm seriously considering that this place is just a playground for irrational egomaniacs worshiping contemporary fads; not a suitable habitat for a realist.

Smiles; me too; I find life in the Spiritual realm; full life now;
and I am sick and tired of inviting folks to such a wonderful
place they cannot possibly go; I should have known better;
but I for one do know that there are no limits in
this life, except for the one's
folks impose
on their own
self.

That is something
no other person can control;
but is a truly self-imposed hell
for many folks, including myself now
in what I can THANK GOD finally call

the distant past; that is no longer
a reality of LITERAL human hell

for me..

Smiles, and bless you FRIEND..

Who said anything about entropy or contradicting the natural order?

DentArthurDent said 'energy applied to non-biological systems also provides order'.

You asked for an example of that assertion. Chemical bonds being formed is an example.

Ah!! ! Nonsense!! !

A stone falling from a height does not "provide order" it obeys the order.

Carrying a stone up a ladder so you can drop it also obeys the order known as entropy. Only part of the energy put into lifting the stone is recouped in its fall. Same applies to chemistry. But you're not the slightest interested in the facts because they are inconvenient to your irrational ideology.

The entropy of a system can decrease if the entropy of the surroundings increases sufficiently to balance it out. This means that localised areas of low entropy are perfectly possible. This is regularly observed in laboratories.

There are loads!

Buddhists are the most obvious, but many atheists believe in ghosts, healing crystals, homoeopathy, life after death, reincarnation, "chi", fate, "good/bad luck" (e.g. breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks), and so forth.

Jannisy you beat me to it. I did not think an example was really needed, but clearly David does not see geo chemistry as an increase in complexity. Or maybe he thinks all the molecules have always existed. There are many other examples, but if he wont accept chemical bonding as an example of non biological complexity caused by the addition of energy then there really is no point carrying on any further discussion with the man.

Guilty as charged your honour however you still posted a massive strawman.

Regarding my looking into the possibility of a spiritual realm. I have, and after quote a while believing in spirits, and "Mother Nature" I came to the conclusion it was all fantasy driven by ego. I am much happier now, when confronted by sometching mysterious to declare that I don't know. What I do know is this, it is very clear that much that was unexplained and assumed to be related to the world of mysticism is now understood to be firmly rooted in the natural world, and much that we still don't understand have plausible hypotheses which show them to be of mundane source. What I don't understand is that in light of all this, people seem to be flocking to all sorts of mysticism, I can only presume this is because they cannot cope with the idea that life has no purpose other than life itself. Like I said I find this belief that we are more than earthly life to be somewhat egotistical.

Arthur, I am not going to try and explain the difference my faith has made to my life. However, the benefits have been considerable. It maybe that certain aspects of what is termed mysticism can have a natural explanation. For example Jon Kabat-Zinn has taken Buddhist meditation to use in a secular manner. This is as effective for depression as medication. However, I think this would still suggest a Dualist nature of mankind. My own experience has taken me far beyond that and I'm not sure there would be any point trying to explain.

Think about the simple experiment where ink is placed in a jar of glycerine and spun until so dilute it disappears . completely. Bohm's Implicate Order may explain that reversing the spin will cause the ink to appear again. I would take this to be similar to the Plato's Cave version of reality. I am talking about an experience which goes way beyond that. I do not expect you to put this together with the natural mind. Please do not think this is some kind of arrogance asI believe it is something available to anybody who really wants it.