Sorry, arguments of too much content can appear low content at times. Wish I had more time to elaborate. God bless!

gskowal,

let's start small:

how about the idea of God has existed within nearly all societies?

Why is tons of people having different subjective experiences evidence against the idea of God?

sure..

When it comes to scientific knowledge of consciousness and the mind itself it is pretty much very limited as of now. There are plenty of scientific and philosophical speculations out there which try to explain these questions without invoking supernatural answers. Are they correct? Maybe one day we will find out.

This seems to be another attempt trying for me to disprove another claim. I think the original post was clear in stating that I want theists to provide me with their arguments and "evidence" for their claims rather then ask me questions to disprove them.

But to address your question, it is up to the one who makes a positive claim to prove the claim. So in the case of theists claiming consciousness/self-awareness is evidence of a 'spirit' or metaphysical reality, I want them to prove the claim before I can accept it. So far no theist was able to do so.

that fact seems like one of the most compelling reasons to believe god does not exist because there are so many innumerable different religions and Gods and we have seen them all evolve and change and whatever else. Given that, how could any one religion ever possibly be true?

Well, from my point of view, that is not sufficient enough reason to believe something.

For example, there have been innumerable different types of animals, and we've seen them evolve and change...

So does that mean that animals don't exist?

this is a strange experience indeed.

a few years ago under the guidance of an excellent yoga teacher i did this regularly.

i have no words to explain how you can "watch yourself", but you can.

you could call it evidence, but evidence is usually reserved for things that two people can share, and personal experience...

See: p-zombie

First, let's make it clear that there are societies/tribes that don't have an idea of God( an example would be the Pirahã tribe).
The current idea held by many of a God differs greatly from the first concepts of God. The first concepts of God were very simple and nobody educated today would most likely accept these views to be correct. The idea of God evolved with the expanding knowledge of people, the more answers we were able to have the less need for supernatural explanations. But the idea of God was not hard to think of in these primitive days. Imagine primitive people afraid of surrounding them world, unable to understand the forces of nature they wrongfully decided to take nature's forces personally thinking that someone must be controlling them or that they themselves are alive. Humans are prone to blame objects for their bad fortune. How many times did you curse that chair you've hit your toe with? How many times you've cursed the object that ripped your pants or a shirt? Humans are also prone to seeing what is not really there(read about Apophenia and Pareidolia). It's not hard to speculate on why humans long time ago decided to think that someone out there could be controlling the world, the idea of GOD has come a long way, it has evolved , it was never this sophisticated idea , if it was from the beginning then maybe you would have some valid point, but it wasn't.

Oh man, aside the paraha people part (which is an exception to the rule), you are so close to strongly arguing for the existence of God.

I suggest reading some Fredrich Christ.

huh? please explain.

Again , just because people long time ago were afraid of s*** and started to think that wind for example is actually trying to f*** with them it does not mean that their view was correct because so many societies around the world had similar beliefs(ascribing spirits to or someone to cause these natural forces)

All around the world people had tales of monsters in the woods, dragons, magical beings, mermaid like beings, talking animals, does this mean they were onto something? And they must exist but we just cant seem to find them?

more on this here if you want to read about it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptions_of_God

Suit yourself. All I was saying is that your previous comment has no substance.

I have no way of verifying the veracity of anyone else's claims as I have no way of validating my experience with you. My experience is real and sufficient for me. To change my mind you need to provide a substantive argument. I have no desire to change yours.


I did not say that the message was proof of God.

I need to do all this to achieve what? I have all I need to establish my position for myself. Why do I need to convince you, especially since I think your goal is to remain unconvinced?


I would think that the statement is self-evident given my comments about prayer and meditation. I will leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.

PM Jib and see if he'd be willing to make this a HC thread and I'll jump in.

Sure , but neither was yours. All you've done is stated that you once created a thread about "logical theism" but did not even go into explain what it is. You are lucky I was aware of that thread.

I'm not here to change your mind, you are here to change my mind, again, I think it should be obvious from the original post and the title of this thread. Since you did make a claim stating that the answers supposedly come from God, I want you to go into more detail and explain to me how do you know that? How do you know that they aren't your own answers?

I get you, and all I said is that the idea to love everyone not something that can't be done without God...

Then why do you bother participating in my thread? I mean you guys want to participate in the conversation but once I start asking you for more details you go on a defensive and start claiming you don't need to do anything. Then why bother discussing? I though you are willing to actually discuss this topic and answer questions I would have. If that's not the case then again, why bother participating? Not that I don't want you to , but I'm just saying.

Why not just explain it? I mean again, if you are not willing to answer to my questions , then why bother? I think you can do much better, if you are willing to discuss these topics then why do you insist on holding these answers back?

Sure, I just PMed him. Will see if it can be done.