issuevoter wrote on Apr 5
th, 2019 at 9:34pm:
PZ547 wrote on Apr 5
th, 2019 at 2:07pm:
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There's something out there. I call it God for the sake of convenience and I appreciate the fact that God is there
Out where?
Could be inner space, or outer space or who knows
We have our extremely limited five -- some say six -- senses
We have our artificial concept of Time
If we grew up alone in the bush, would we have any concept of a higher-being? Notable coincidences, for instance -- would we (living as a wild thing in the bush) reach the conclusion (based on these notable coincidences) that there was something more than our well-honed five senses? Would we consider a particular natural formation -- tree or rock -- to possess more than ordinary significance because that tree or rock was the location of an unsettling experience, perhaps more than once, for example? Would we return to that particular tree or rock in awe, or perhaps reverance? Would we elevate it to a type of 'god' status? If the original experience/set of coincidences were beneficial to us, we might. If on the other hand that tree or rock had been the site of frightening/negative experiences/coincidences, we might regard it as 'demonic' and something to be avoided or appeased
so, some might argue that we create gods and demons. Others might say we would have no concept of either were it not for early childhood conditioning, i.e., organised religion
Most humans have at least one notable experience which persuades them that there's 'more' beyond or outside their material existence. Some are scared by that realisation and fall back on the black and white claims of religion, i.e., good/evil, god/debil. Or, they simply deny the event occurred, or mark it down to 'just coincidence'
Or, it may be that our human concept of Time is way out of whack, with the truth being that thousands of years by our reckoning is a mere blink of the eye in other realities, in which case evolution as we regard it is as fleeting as the life-span of an earthly butterfly, hence our limited understanding of gods/God
It's easy to understand why some people, regardless of their intellect or superiority in other fields, still have embedded in their mind the belief that God is a bearded old guy who might be all-forgiving or strict or simply indifferent, depending on their earliest impressions formed by early religious teachings. And depending on their other childhood experiences with parents and teachers, they might reject, rebel or accept god/s and religion
Some people's life-experiences are mundane for the larger part whilst the lives of others are filled with extraordinary experiences which force them to think outside the box
Someone who's been forced by experience to suspect or believe that there is more than the ordinary five senses (or the life, death and heavenly paradise promised by religion) will have little in common with those who choose not to ponder or question. The former are forced to reveal their extraordinary experiences in the hope of finding confirmation in the experiences of others. The latter believe the former to be unhinged and fantasists. What separates the two? Is it random or are some wired in a way which predisposes them to experience 'more'?
We're told that Moses returned from the mountain blazing with glory/radiation burns and carrying miraculously engraved tablets whilst the rank and file were happily cavorting around idols. But where are the Moses of today? And what would be their fate if someone were to stagger down from a hill today, claiming to possess tombstones personally engraved by God? No doubt that individual would be dragged off to a psychiatric institution. At the same time, billionaires today fund teams intent on discovering Noah's Ark and the Ark of the Covenant and highly educated individuals are killed and murdered as result of those ongoing searches -- hundreds of books are devoted to the subject and societies and wars rest on biblical stories
Were people mad back then? Are we of today mad? Where are our current prophets -- medicated in secure installations? No further personal inscriptions from God in thousands of years past? Or, as suggested, is our concept of Time skewed?
The Ten Commandments are excellent, imo. If we'd never heard of them, we'd be hard pressed to come up with anything to better them. So either we credit them to a wise God, or we salute those old tale tellers
and back in that same era and long before it, people had and discussed experiences which fell outside the norm and suggested the dead may communicate with the living, for example, and miraculous escapes from injury and death, prophetic dreams and visions, etc. People are still having these experiences and people generally are very interested in the evidence suggesting there is 'more', as is revealed in the popularity of books and websites dedicated to what is termed the paranormal. Not many these days claim to have spoken with God, but tales of the paranormal suggest God is still working in mysterious ways. It's claimed this is because the human ego is hungry for evidence of continued existence after physical death. But isn't this exactly what organised religions rely upon for their own continued existence, not to mention their daily bread and butter?
So, blind faith or evidence? Some of us have experienced a form of evidence