Do you believe in God?

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This question is dealt with in Matthew 4:6-7, about Jesus talking to the Devil. Devil says:
“If You are the Son of God,” he said, “throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command His angels concerning You, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

The question also refers to the issue, whether God still interferes in everyday life ("special relevation" or "direct relevation"). It is believed by mainstream Christianity that direct revelation had ceased with the death of the early apostles in the first century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_revelation

So I want to say that there are Christian "counter arguments" to the statement, why you just couldn't jump down of a cliff. They say that God has an effect upon nations or the world, but in an indirect manner.
This doesn't change the fact that Christian statements are usually doctrinal rather than realistic, since there doesn't seem no direct and also no indirect effect by God on the world
Perhaps only a pantheist God (cause I'm into Zen right now)

A particularly uncomfortable conversation for a lot of people, being that we know with absolute certainty that everyone who claims to see UFO's is either making it up, taking too little water with their moonshine, or schizophrenic. Here's Jacques Vallee taxonomizing the Easter Bunny:

Years ago I saw an U. F. O.
At the time I thought we were being invaded.

A UFO is an unidentified flying object.

Later I found out about Stealth bombers.

https://www.facebook.com/satyasanaatanh ... 514315487/

Better than Watts? U.G. Krishmamurti.

If U. G. aka U.G. Krishmamurti
was Jewish would he say Feh rather than boom?
Loose translation of U.G. Krishmamurti and my Jewish grandmother.



"If we can't laugh at ourselves, others will beat us to it."

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I am honestly puzzled from the angle that you suppose you have a grasp of the religious beliefs of your opponents by merely a few posts that you exchanged between you and him.

Likewise when you attempt to debate physics (with a cosmologist and physicist like me) you make elementary errors in understanding the underlying processes by which your examples and points fail to grasp the points and arguments that I make. I mean it is commendable that you wish to learn some of the things that I practice, but when you bring your points against me, it is often easy for me as a physicist to point out the fallacy within them, and as a physicist myself, often it showed.

As for me, I can speak to myself, and say I am a theist. And to answer your other question, 'fine-tuning of the universe' is not the most convincing argument that makes me a theist rather than an atheist. Things like the resurrection of Christ are for me, more convincing than any other argument presented from physics.

Krishmamurti as I little understand didn't want anyone to make much if what he said.

Grandma said Feh when she didn't like an idea

Many folks say
They have no idea of what I said
Some teachers of old said no to all queries.

I still have no idea of what I say at times.

Aside - I played stupid characters a lot on radio. A fellow cast members said and assumed I must be smart to play them.
I said perhaps.

I know that NoahYates is defending belief in God while rejecting labels (and indeed anything specific). Which seems contradictory and intellectually dishonest.

I don't claim to understand Physics or Cosmology, but I think you claim to understand more than you do. There is no complete standard model, and there are alternatives to those you mention, which don't require the additional premise of a supernatural being.

I don't know if you want to discuss the story of the resurrection, but there's no evidence for it. And even if someone did rise from the dead it doesn't prove God.

No there is a standard model, it is the lambda-CDM. It is universally accepted. Period.

If you wish to debate this fact in more depth, then you are most certainly welcome to visit my cubicle at my university, during my office hours. I am due to start my first real teaching experience this September, with teaching a second year intro to Cosmology course. I think I know what I am talking about.

It really might just be personal preference but I really preferred Manly P Hall's lecture style - Alan Watts had some interesting insights but really it's the former's Mark Twain type satire and sarcasm combined with incredibly penetrating anthropological and symbolic insight. Really I liked a lot more of his lectures on nuts-and-bolts life issues, sociology, and psychologies way more than his race rounds, engergy bodies, etc.. stuff just because it seemed unquestionably practical.

Going a bit farther out on a limb, considering the magical path (what might considered cognitive behavioral behavioral therapy on rocket fuel with the dangling possibility that it might brush up against greater metaphysical objects), I'm finding that I'm increasingly impressed by William G Gray's writing. Not just in how grounded and practical he was, but also in chapter two of Magic Ritual Methods he offers a daily exercise that really blew me away both in simplicity and potential. His style and content is really along that track where it's humble, not particularly glamorous at all, but you can see immense value in the thoughts he committed to paper.

You are putting words in my mouth AspE. And you also have apparent contradictory beliefs if you think Krishmamurti and Watts have compatible worldviews.

f**k magic.

It's not complete and you know it. There are numerous plausible multi-verse models as well.

Glad to see so many suggestions - I'm currently reading!
First thing I have to know whether Alan Watts and these Indians are into reincarnation, cause that's not my thing. As far as I've been reading today, Watts is not propagating the conventional type of reincarnation, fortunately