Faust870 Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 I have my own religion :D... And it doesnt involve believing in a supreme god... I really dont believe one exists...Until i have physical proof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darnoc Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 What never will happen. Tell me, how do you expect to have physical proof about something spiritual? It is impossible. Concerning ghosts, spirits, god and everything else spiritual you can't apply science or physical proof. So you either believe in it or not. It's your choice. Oh and by the way, can you proof actually that you do exist? Hm. Didn't think so. Science can't prove anything. Science can only describe appearances of which we do not know if they really exist. These appearances we call physical reality. How do you expect to have a real proof of something such unreliable as physical reality? If you want to proof something you have to find something more reliable than physical reality and your own senses. The term "physical proof" is wrong in itself. A physical proof doesn't exist, because you can't proof physical reality itself. So if you can't proof the basis of a physical proof you can't call a phyiscal proof a proof. You could say "This would be a proof, if physical reality existed". When physical reality would exist, what we do not know, then the physical proof would acctually be a proof. But remember that we are only speaking hypothetical here, we can't proof physical reality, so any so called physical proof will stay an assumption based on another assumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faust870 Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 See, I am an Evolutionist... I believe in evolution over religion, to me it makes more sense.. Religion is something that we (as humans) have made up... Lets say tomorrow everyone dies, except a group of children (Somewhat like the book "Lord of the Flies") and those children have no knowledge of a God, they will come up with their own beliefs... lets say the first tree they see... they have never seen a tree before, this is the only standing tree in for all they know in the world (which could be lets say a small island they are on) this tree could now be their supreme being... its the eldest thing they know... so they think its wise and knowledgable... I believe that god is really a figment of our imagination... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darnoc Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 I know that scientists today say this, but there they are wrong. They assume, because they can't see god/the gods/the spirits that the people who believe in them must have made them up. That is a mistake. If you can't recognize something with your senses this doesn't mean it ceases to exist. Can you recognize energy with your senses? No, you can't but still you believe that it does exist. So the question of god is not like "Can I recognize god phyiscally with my senses?" because this is impossible, god is spirit. The question must be "Is it possible that god exists?". The answer to this question can't be found with science, because we are talking about something that is beyond any science. The answer must be searched somewhere else. I personally think that it can be found with reason. And it is my reason tells me that the possibility "god" could exist. Therefore I must assume that it is possible that he does exist. I can't proof that he exists, because god is not physical, but I am, so I can only think in physical terms. And I can't even proof that something like "physical" exists, so therefore I can't proof my existence nor the existence of anything else. I can only know that the possibility does exist. And god is one possibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vandorssen Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 Religion, in general, I believe, is man’s way of making sense of an irrational world, or existence. The only way to make sense out of irrationality is more irrationality. Early civilization and early man could not make sense out of seemingly random occurrences. “Why was there a flood?” “Because God(s) are punishing us.” It would not have occurred to early man that there is such a thing as weather patterns, and that with the right instruments, weather can be predicted with some degree of precision. It was only some hundreds of years ago that the Catholic Church censored and punished “heretics” for saying the Earth was not the center of the stellar universe, and by extension a truly singular example of God’s creation. If I remember correctly (I may be entirely wrong, and please correct me if I am) it was not until the 1970s(!) that the Catholic Church finally apologized for having put Galileo under house arrest for having the audacity of speaking the truth. But aside from all the idiosyncrasies of religion, it does bring one very important thing to its believers: a sense of purpose. Whether it is purification by pain, or blowing up a bus, or helping the sick and indignant, it shows to its believers that they have a purpose. Religion is (and has been) a great source of evil. All religions. But I think, on balance, it has done more good for the irrational, illogical, overly emotional beings that are human. I have simply “evolved” beyond the need for religion by seeing the world and reality for what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darnoc Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 @vandorssen: I don't think that mankind has evolved. Perhaps in technology but certainly not in our behaviour and our minds. We now begin to explore our psyche which is one first step in the right direction. We can do more with our minds than we now know and I think that those can evolve over time. Perhaps we can even develop certain skills like telepathy or telekinese, skills which only use the mind as a ressource. I don't think that the future lies in technology but in the exploration of our own minds. In the end we will no longer need machines or technology, because we will be able to do things only by the will of our own minds. When I talked about the possibility of god's existence, I didn't mean with this the primitive believes of earlier times, which was only a reaction of the people trying to explain things. I mean the more evolved thinking of philosophers and some scientists which are trying to find the truth with the exploration of their minds. I am not trying to explain certain things which I can't explain, I am merely talking about the possibility of the existence of a higher being, which can not be proven by science nor disproven. The spiritual realm can not be explained nor explored by scientific means, for this we must use the power of our minds, or what sometimes is called "our own spirit". If such a thing exists. What we do not know, as long as we are not evolved enough to leave the physical behind with our minds and enter, what I call now "the next phase of thinking". To truly evolve, we will have to leave materialism behind and physical thinking. We must forget our senses and use the power of mind and look into ourselfs. And when we have done this, we will find that we are acctually looking out. We will look into a world which was closed for us until now. This is the next step in our evolvment. And there we will perhaps find what I call now god. The absolute perfect being, a purely spiritual being, no longer bound to time, space or anything else in physical reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vandorssen Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 I cannot, in good consciousness argue in metaphysical terms. I am intelligent enough to know I do not have those answers. However, it would not surprise me if there were a “spiritual” world of sorts. Memory is chemically stored energy, existing simultaneously as matter and energy. Neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, and thus it would seem, although theoretically improbable, but not impossible, that after we depart from this “mortal plane” our consciousnesses continue to exist on some level. But for it to make sense for me, it would have to be argued in the kind of scientific terms I used above. Otherwise it is just unproven theory, albeit a metaphysical one (and thus cannot be proven in our lifetime/reality). When I spoke of “evolving” beyond the need to use religion to gain perspective on existence and therefore on all reality, I perhaps should have used “gained a moment of utter clarity”. Humans, as a rule, generally use only 10-15% of our theoretical brain capacity (both in terms of memory and, if you pardon the term, processing power). To say that I had evolved could be perceived as the rather pompous assertion that I have learned to use more than that capacity, which is nonsense. That is the sad thing about metaphysics and by extension religion: you can argue the probable or improbable one way or another but truth will be ever illusive and beyond our limited perceptual abilities. That is one of the beauties of abandoning religion for logic. You can find truth without the obscurity of religion. You can then disregard ancient superstition for the perceivable and readily quantifiable. Even Einstein described his work in relativity as an attempt to know the mind of God. Religion colored his attempt at finding truth, however small it may have done so. Tens of thousands of years of conditioning human culture and society in terms of religion does make it very important to modern man. For modern society to disregard all beliefs and religions without understanding the true nature of reality would be dangerous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darnoc Posted April 21, 2004 Share Posted April 21, 2004 Your theory that spirit is in fact another sort of energy is also what I believe. Somekind of intelligent energy tough. With "exploring and evolving our mind" I didn't mean the exploration of the physical brain, but the exploration of this energy. God is perhaps the sum of all those intelligent energy. Something similar was believed by the Greek philosophers, they called it "cosmos" and from this "cosmos" all other spirits originate. "Cosmos" is in fact the sum of all this spiritual energy. If you ever have read "Dune" then you know what I mean with evolment of our minds. Moving withouth motion, only by will power. Human brains more effective than any computer. "Seeing" all the possibilities at once and then choose the right path. The fourdimensional thinking. Total control of owns body by willpower. Even the ability to store this spiritual energy and transfer it to another human being. Also the ability to change the structure of an atom or to controll time. Interesting is that in Herberts novel humans have the law "You shall not create a machine after the image of your own mind". They believe that the human spirit is somehow divine and can achieve anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_gobes Posted April 22, 2004 Share Posted April 22, 2004 wow I think I'm the only Christian that replied that attends church regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eMbry00s Posted April 28, 2004 Share Posted April 28, 2004 I'm an atheist, the closest answer avalible was -none-, so thats what I voted.Also, I'm a determinist (I think, haven't checked it up completely yet) but since that is (kind of) a branch from atheism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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