Is there a God, Philosophical Debate

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I'm a strong theist me.

I appreciate that my post was not top quality. I lazily stated the scientific consensus without citing sources.

Thank you for attempting to be intellectually honest. I will try to return the favour by giving you the real debunking you have requested.

I hope you are willing to accept a few things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and "low prior probability" and "statistically significant". If you need the importance of these concepts explaining, then please say so - I don't want to give debunkings that assume a shared appreciation of these crucial ideas if what is actually needed is an explanation of them.

What I mean is things like whether mystical experiences have been encapsulated to being nothing more than material brain processes. I won't ask about NDE or psy because there's too much ideological stand-off and the words 'peer-reviewed' are proprietary to both sides of each argument.

For my own measure the extraordinary proof has been closer to being in line with extraordinary human behavior and it's a facet of this that I don't think most people really have a handle on. With extraordinary human behavior you have a lot of mystic/esoteric orders with not only very comprehensive initiation technology but they can talk all day about the process, what people experiences, it's very much so with paths involved with Qabalah, pinning tarot to the Tree of Life, and even when you look at tarot study there are people who'd argue that you could study the 22 major trump for the rest of your life and still not exhaust their depths. At a minimum they're doing something quite profound in creating some phenomenally useful synaesthesia with enough practice and discipline. Similar goes for astral travel - ie. I'm not aware of any documented proof, remote viewers were 'hit and miss' in such a ratio that they couldn't supply enough information for the government to actively use them in the cold war (the fine details in gathering intelligence are make-or-break).

I suppose that might be where we could start. I'm close to 100%, for the reading binge I've been on in the last two years, that so much of everything from mainstream religious down to new age, neopagan, mystic, and esoteric/occult experiences are internally valid experiences. In other words these people are speaking honestly about about what they perceive. What's made this far more interesting to research is the depth of detail that esoteric orders and authors will go to in describing initiatory paths and the fruit of taking those paths, their metaphysical roadmap of what's where, the psychological processes involved in a particular conscious transformation; they get into enough nuts and bolts with their Jung to start sounding like mechanics. The kinds of books out there, particularly on the esoteric end and very current on-going, just don't fit the bill for me of people pitching tall tales to make money (an 'I died and met God!' would be much easier and wouldn't require years of studying mind-melting gibberish). It's another level of interest when I go online to Amazon.com and look at certain ceremonial hermetic magic courses and see how the reviews play out, a great example is Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics. When one goes through and reads the reviews, certain things are happening that just shouldn't be, not a few arseclowns claiming they summoned gnomes but people getting into quite serious discussion about the magical path and results in general.

It's tough for me to understand how stuff like that gets ignored when even if it were a phenomena that just reduced to matter the sheer utility of it would make it worthwhile. It would be tantamount to computer-hacking your own brain and I really think that those who are using symbolism in specific manners may be as on to something with respect to melting the wall between conscious and subconscious to get extended use of both.

Ever heard of Schrodinger's Cat?

....but anyway,

I believe that there is 'something' beyond all we can perceive through our senses, or understand by our limited, egocentric-based intellect.

The term 'God' is just a term...a word. It is 'dog spelled backwards', but if the association can be made, then what that 'something' is, can be called 'God'.

*I go one step further and call it 'Shiva' (but that is personal preference).

I also tend to either be the victim of circumstance or ironic coincidence a LOT, which also leads me to believe that 'something' has a very peculiar sense of humour and loves to show me up and pull my leg almost constantly.

I feel something 'tugging' at me...like a ghost who says "I am here, I am trying to show you I am here, but why can't you see me?'

The 'paradox' is created within your own mind and only escaping from the prison of your mind can expose the critical accuracy.

Is there a God? Yes.