Is there a God, Philosophical Debate

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Hello, this is my first post of real discussion on this site, please dont be too harsh on me.

Now, let me see if I can convey this properly. Around 5 years or so when I was jobless, and continued to be so for around 2 years due to personal IRL issues. I tried to bury my thoughts and feelings in video games but that only got me so far and being jobless you can imagine you dont have the income to really buy more content for yourself. So, eventually I began thinking about my life which then transpired into a religious debate among myself to try and make sense of it all. This debate continued off and on for over 6 months. Now, keep in mind this was many years ago, and a lot of the factors that allowed me to come a conclusion upon this subject included various articles, documentaries, and texts; most of which where scientific or technical in nature. My original conclusion to this debate came down to a single question, which was a Paradox. The Question to the Answer was: How can something Exist and not Exist at the exact same time?


Anyone care to express there views, and perhaps add to the discussion?

Easy. A thing can exist in one sense and not exist in another. The human soul, for instance, is non-existent from a purely materialist perspective. There is no material, empirical evidence for it.

But just because something lacks an empiricist, material explanation doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. Having a "soul" does have a certain "feel" to it that, while difficult to put into words or perhaps even being undefinable, is just as difficult to dismiss entirely. I think having personal knowledge of something through intuition or direct experience HAS to count for something, so I'd have no trouble saying the soul DOES exist (what else can it be? Even if it's a bunch of electro-chemical firings in my brain, it's still SOMETHING).

That has no bearing in science or scientific descriptions of "existence." If someone told me to empirically prove the soul exists, I'd have to admit that I cannot do that. But, then again, something like that is actually beyond the scope of what science does. The nature of science is in physical study, not spiritual or supernatural study. It's enough for me to know the soul exists, and I don't need something or someone to tell me I'm not experiencing what I'm most certainly experiencing!

I'm wondering if the name of this post is really: "Do YOU believe in God?" since there seems to be no way to have a rational discussion either arguing for or against faith based beliefs.

denny

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1i-BKtxaGo[/youtube]God is dead and we killed him! Also http://godisimaginary.com/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BQKjGlqJm0[/youtube]

That depends on what you let pass for "rational."

There very much is -- the rational argument is to ask anyone answering in the positive to offer empirical evidence of their claims which can be verified through repeatable naturalistic means. Thus far, after centuries and even millennia for some deities, none has been offered.

If I had to bet money, I'd have to say 'no'.

Well, until you open the box...

In all seriousness, I think the analogy is a decent one.

If there is a God, he probably doesn't reveal himself to humans whilst they are alive in a way that would prove he exist. At most, he reveals himself to a few individuals in a private way.

When we die, we discover whether there is a God planning an afterlife for us - or, as the case may be, we discover nothing at all.

Until we collapse the wave function*, any non-interventionist god both exists and does not exist. Of course, that is a totally meaningless statement.

* I don't understand what this means but pretending that I do makes me seem intelligent

My personal belief is that our brains are not equipped to comprehend anything/force/consciousness/prime mover/etc. that could be called God. Our every attempt- including all religion, including the word "God" and all the baggage that goes with it, including the very concepts of consciousness, force, prime mover are all hopeless anthropomorphisation.

This is why I stick to science. There are things we can measure, including energy signatures left from the Big Bang. When we step outside the things we can measure, we are left with nothing but to spin narratives. Those narratives can be as complex as all religions or as simple as "I believe some force intentionally caused the Big Bang and that force is God". In the end, all the narratives are constrained by the limits of what a human brain can comprehend.

This isn't atheism exactly. Instead, I am reluctant to say "God" because that immediately brings up narratives about consciousness and intention which are human concepts. We can't actually step outside human concepts and that is a hard limit. Modern concepts such as "prime mover that initiated the Big Bang" seems far removed from Zeus throwing thunderbolts but it really isn't. Humans aren't capable of stepping outside the limits of a human mind so whatever we think up will be some version of how we perceive intentionality. The very idea of intentionality is just a side effect of being live humans living on a planet full of other life. We can't step outside that frame of reference. So the question can't ever be settled because we are permanently constrained by always having a human brain and being forced to perceive everything through that filter.

This is something you'll only find an answer to in the realm of experience.

For me there's loads of phenomena which run both in the direction of materialism and away from it and people have a tendency to grab up whatever is closest to them.

On cosmology - it's often suggested by those who live on the search that all is One Mind, that we reincarnate seeking to become increasingly more like the one who spawned us (ie. perfection), and this is where little godlings, essentially, work out their not-God aspects. Some do so through creative and constructive endeavors, some do so at the expense of others. Each time a person dies or 'transitions' they close conceptual ties with the body (something the higher self or soul personality as it's called has you strapped into for it's own purposes) and from there you review your life at 1/3 speed backward and see it in the celestial framework of what had meaning and what didn't. One might either be going back into incarnation after that or be leaving the wheel or incarnation.

As for something to be experienced - whether or not someone experiences anything and whether they end up mainstream religious, atheist, eastern, esoteric, or whatever the situation may be it's on account of their soul's mission with them. Consequently proof one way or another meets impasse not only on human credulity one way or another but also because to have some great truth dominate the landscape prevents certain souls working out, say, atheist or nominal religious lessons would be deprived of their ability to do so. Thus things have a way of staying in stalemate until the whole project in total is able to move forward in a particular direction.

The beauty - I can say this and those who are meant to see this as a crank/crackpot post will see it that way, others who already believe it will just have their beliefs endorsed, and someone on the fence might find something in it that helps them.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 06 May 2014, 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also, semantics may lead us to an apparent paradox.

In math, given ...

a. imaginary number 'i'
b. real number 'r '

i * i * i * i = i ^ 4 = 1 = r

so in math, the "imaginary" can be "real"

In philosophical sense of course there exists something that could be considered "God". And I like to think that science will someday discover a key variable to "the randomness" that caused "everything" for -us- to start and therefore will be seen/accepted as the "God" wave/explosion/force/radiation/etc and will be used to locate other sources of life in the universe. I think the term "God" will be seen as some kind of mock word for one of the stages in the growth of intelligent life. Different "aliens races" will drop it at a slower or quicker rate than others as their ability to understand "how stuff works" grows (or maybe "how stuff doesn't work").

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkiqRscgd4Y[/youtube]

There is no paradox, either something exists or it doesn't.