so you practically believe in the existence of GOD ( is it the christian god? and if so , how can it be if you don't even really accept the bible?) without any reason except because that's what you feel like it?

I have.

This is false. There are over thousands of copies of manuscripts some new some old, of both the new and old testament, not a word has been changed. Remember the Jews looked at their scriptures as a history book, and some memorized the entire old testament word for word.

Pretty much. I've had multiple spooky mystical experiences. I know how to explain all of these away in scientific terms but it doesn't matter. I still believe that they are real. I think it's something you have to experience to understand. It feels really, really real.

I've actually read a book that explains how these mystical experiences are created in the brain. It's called "The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience" by Kevin Nelson, M.D.

Neurology can explain why these mystical experiences happen to people and what is going on in the brain when they happen. So I have to admit that there is a good chance that everything I've experienced is just a function of some neurons firing and not an experience with a real spiritual entity. I don't believe that is the case though and neither doesn't just about anyone who has actually gone through these experiences that are documented in this book, which includes former Atheists. It just feels so real that it's almost impossible to not believe. Trust me, I've tried.

What you view as "terrible" is simply your own misunderstanding and bias caused by modern secular society. I will take my time and explain it to you patiently. There has been books written on this stuff that fully explain all these "problems" that you see but really they don't exist.

the killing of homosexuals/genocide: 1st you must remember, homosexuality in ancient times is not like homosexuality today in the sense that it wasn't just accepted, but it was almost unheard of let alone not allowed. So for someone to engage in homosexuality, they clearly deviated to a point of no return, their hearts were almost of an antichrist nature. they were so against God (their creator) that the next divine plan is to destroy them. This is why a lot of genocides occurred because people have deviated so badly that there was no hope.

slavery: in ancient times, there was no industrialization, mass production, etc. people couldn't just buy mcdonalds for a 1/50th of their wage and be satisfied. survival meant that you had to own land and livestock, or else you had to work for someone. If a slave owner let a slave go, that slave had to find another master, or else he/she would starve to death. It is the same relationship as today, where we work for a company. it is a boss/worker relationship. The term "slave" to us gets bad connotations because as civil rights and modernization came, the system of slavery is no longer needed.

gender roles: first of all, the term "sexist" only applies to modern society, where the roles of genders do not matter anymore. but in ancient society the men hunted and did most of the tougher jobs and the woman took care of the household and obeyed the men. So it was a harmonious relationship and the roles were set. The bible speaks for that time period so that those people may know how to treat the roles of gender. It's not going to speak for our time, because then it would confuse the ancient people. We today have more than enough intelligence to understand why it would have those gender roles. It most certainly would be better for a man to preach the Gospel during ancient times, because the culture of that time gives men more credibility, which makes his message much more effective.

basically, if you really have a desire to know more, you will find the truth, or shall i say the truth will find you. take care.

I too find this odd, but I personally believe it stems from the emotional significance of whatever event catalyzes these types of revelations.

Often the emotional signification and impact of said event overpowers the ability for people to see this. I imagine as time moves forward, and as the emotional event becomes more of a memory than a reality, one's ability to rationally dissect their own beliefs will increase.

hypothetical: Imagine your girlfriend (to whom you were going to purpose to in a few days) is in the hospitable and has a roughly 20% chance of survival from some terrible car accident. You are an atheist (or maybe your just a person without a label), but in this moment you realize you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying to pray to say... the most familiar higher power you know (see: socialization), so you reach out to the Christian god, pray, and miraculously she beats the odds and survives. I think the emotional magnitude of this event would, at least in the short term, overpower the rational dissection I mentioned earlier.

regards,
#

+1

Give the man some slack, he mentioned he is going though a time where he is trying to decide what he believes, no reason to try to pin him into a corner. We humans are animals, and when pinned into corners... well lets just say our best colors don't shine.

You seem to believe that what was right can turn into what is wrong. I can't buy that.

I'm curious how you have come to your ideas about God if not through the Bible. You seem to have a number of assumptions about him... where are these coming from and how are they justified in your mind? (presumeably you've drawn your conclusions about God from somewhere... for instance, that he is good)

I respect your attitude but I'd just like to say, as someone who has also had "spooky mystical experiences" that it is wrong to think that a neuroscientific understanding of them "explains them away". I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that once you understand something rationally you deplete it of all spiritual significance, but this is wrong. I think the scientific language and the mythopoetic language of mysticism describe the same experiences and phenomena but from different points of view. I think duffe is basically right that spirituality at its core is just wonder at the weirdness of being, and science only enables that for me.

To play devil's advocate- there could be a person represented in a manipulated text. That is, there could have been a Jesus and the Bible could largely represent who he was, what he said BUT have been altered or changed so that certain parts were incorrect while the bulk of it was true.

That being said- that of course illuminates the problems with dogmatism since if one is admitting the above is true then one could never be definitive about any specific part of the book.

nothing more disturbing then seeing certain Christians try to justify the atrocities of ancient man because its mentioned in the Bible. Not to mention the ridiculous revisionist history.

I would probably have to spit out 5,000 words to really answer this. Let's just say that I've been influence by Srikumar Rao, transhumanism, Nick Bostrom's simulation argument, and most recently John Shelby Spong.

I'm not going to pretend that I can justify anything. If you read all the posts I've made in this forum you are going to find inconsistencies and backpeddling. I'm just trying to figure things out. I feel like I have a tiny, tiny slice of an understanding of God, but I can't even claim that with 100% certainty.

This just proves how misinformed and brainwashed one is in post modern society.

You should check out Frank Tipler and Teilhard de Chardin if you like the transhumanist stuff. Not familiar with the other names you mentioned, but if Spong's favorite theologian is Tillich then he must be alright. I'm not any kind of Christian, but I got a hell of a lot out of reading Tillich (and also Kierkegaard).

My belief is that the neurologists can document how the brain reacts during mystical experiences but that fact doesn't preclude a real spiritual interaction. I have a dualistic take on consciousness and think that it is possible that God, through the spiritual realm, can interact with our neurons and that our scientific knowledge just isn't advanced enough to explain how that is done yet.

I don't have any evidence that my belief is real, it's just speculation. I believe it because of how real the mystical experiences have been. Like I said, it's almost impossible to not believe if one has had an experience like this IMO.

Problem is as you stated that then nobody knows what is true what isn't yet we are required to believe in the text. Also, if someone did change the text around and misrepresented the laws of God or stories about Jesus then why would GOD allow for that to happen? There's a problem. There is a God who knows his book is fully or partially misrepresenting him including what he wants from us yet he doesn't care about it and at the same time requires us to believe in the same book which is misrepresenting him and his even his existence? Yet the God described in the bible is not a deistic form of being that does not intervene. He does intervene, he comes to earth and preaches , he knows his preaching has been twisted around and lies are being spread about him. There's a problem...

I have read Tipler and have actually had an email conversation with him. It's a very interesting theory but I'm really not educated enough in physics to give it a proper critique. I asked him a couple tough questions in the email but his responses were unconvincing. He's a Catholic who believes in the inerrancy of the church. I am never going to believe that.

His theories are pretty cool though.

luckily you've come from the pre-modern society to straighten us out.

We need to return to the good ol days when you could rape a slave and force women to marry you after you kill their spouses!

Thanks for straightening us out.

My speculation is that God purposely remains mysterious for some reason that I don't know. If I had to guess I would speculate that God's nature is so much more complex than us that it really wouldn't do any good for it (I don't believe God has a gender) to lay it all out there because we wouldn't understand it anyway.

Now to accept what I just wrote one has to admit that there is no one source that captures all the truths about God. That's why I don't really believe in religion.

No doubt there are problems if we accept that someone has screwed with it. That doesn't mean, though, that the majority of the book can't be accurate... we just don't know for certain the entirety of what's been screwed up.

That being said, let's say 98% of it was true and 2% of it has been messed with... it isn't logical to say that you must discard everything in a book even if you know 2% of it is wrong.

I take it for granted that the majority of what we know of history and such is only correct to some unknown degree.

Well, I don't think that there is a spiritual realm and a material realm that interact with each other. I think there is just the one world and multiple valid takes on it that may or may not be commensurable in principle. So I don't think we'll agree there.

Re: mysticism and neuroscience, I want to say that just because mystical experiences originate in the brain doesn't mean they are not veridical. All ordinary perception and cognition originates in the brain but we don't question their veridicality for that reason. We say simply, here are such and such processes in the brain that allow us to cognize the world in such and such a way.

The problem with mystical experiences is that they are infrequent and hard to understand, so it is much easier to simply dismiss them as craziness or hallucination.

I didn't find Tipler very convincing either, but I think he is illustrative of a way of thinking about religion that is pretty radical for this forum and also a hell of a lot more interesting than most of what passes for religious metaphysics.

The method has ended up producing about as many views on what is the truth as there are people that read it.

Let's imagine for a moment that The Beatles' White Album is the equivalent of the bible. Now, you listen to this work and know the way it makes you feel and why, and react accordingly. Now for everyone, the words and music (depending upon your sound delivery device of course ) are the same. But how would the feeling and reaction be different if you were:
1. Pete Best
2. Yoko Ono
3. Charles Manson

Which one has the correct feeling, or are they all wrong?

You dont need Jesus to talk to God.