I can prove God exists

[9sublime]

Religion itself could only flourish within a world view that permits it, don't you think? And it is this world view, an almost intuitive understanding of some fundamental metaphysical truth, that I am suggesting developed independently throughout the world.

Yes, I am anyway.

Humans crave the knowledge of what happens to them after they die. So they create it after a while, and start believing their own crap, and pass it down.

What the founder of this belief chooses to base it on is probably going to revolve around the following themes:

After death, something good will happen to you if you are good in life.
There is a creator.

 

[numinus]

First of all, its not the exact same conclusion, otherwise we would have one religion...

At some fundamental level, the conclusions are the same - that ideas exist independent of the material world;

That there is a duality (ideal and physical) in nature that are inseparable;

That this duality is an indispensable aspect of reality.

Secondly, all the major religions have been mixed up in a big religious incest orgy for thousands of years.

Really?

Kindly state the influences of, say, ancient judaism to confucian ethics or buddhism, hmmm?

And you say there is considerable contact between these cradles of civilization enough to explain a fundamental similarity in world view, eh?

Thirdly, humans have a primitive urge to satisfy the question, what happens when we die? Every society coming up with a solution to the question is about as suprising as every hungry person satisfying the urge of hunger by eating. And a nice, caring, loving God thats going to help the people who invented and believe in him over all others seems like quite a nice prospect, wouldn't you agree?

The ability to even ask such an abstract question is related to a higher reasoning faculty. You simply cannot call it 'primitive', and most certainly isn't an 'urge'.

If anything, it is a function of rational thought which manifests through an imperative to know.

 

[numinus]

Yes, I am anyway.

Humans crave the knowledge of what happens to them after they die. So they create it after a while, and start believing their own crap, and pass it down.

What the founder of this belief chooses to base it on is probably going to revolve around the following themes:

After death, something good will happen to you if you are good in life.
There is a creator.

And do you think people would ask such a question if there isn't some intuitive understanding of duality, hmmm?

Is it really a monumental mistake to suggest a different form of existence for mind and body?

I think these people have eaten enough animals and seen enough people killed to know exactly what happens to their material existence after death.

What happens to the mind, however, is something even the natural sciences cannot fully explain.

 

[r0beph]

And do you think people would ask such a question if there isn't some intuitive understanding of duality, hmmm?

Is it really a monumental mistake to suggest a different form of existence for mind and body?

I think these people have eaten enough animals and seen enough people killed to know exactly what happens to their material existence after death.

What happens to the mind, however, is something even the natural sciences cannot fully explain.

I'm not even going to go in depth here, it doesn't take a brilliant mind to see that this can be explained through science just the same. We have an "intuition" of something more, because it's survival insurance. While someone with no spiritual beliefs, on his own, may be highly intent on not dying, because its his only chance. Those with spiritual beliefs will bind socially with others which has insured the survival of cultural entities. It's not that something MUST exist because we have this intuition, but, as you, people will believe and assume it exists because of this. On another note, aliens are watching us shower. They must be there, because I have this feeling, where's my lithium.

 

[9sublime]

I'm not saying its a mistake to believe something might happen after die, I'm saying its a mistake to make up your own God or believe someone elses theory on the afterlife to satisfy the void in ones knowledge about what happens after you idea.
But thats my personal opinion.

The basis of making up a religion which involves the people who follow it going somewhere else after death pretty much has to involve duality, because the body clearly stays and rots in front of the eyes, so the mind is the only part of ones existence that could go to the afterlife.

Thus, people from the dawn of religion have focused it on duality. And as a result,. they have come out with some similiar results.

 

[vyo476]

The human mind is, if I remember correctly, incapable of conceiving true, complete nothingness, therefore the idea that one's mind experiences utter "nothing" after death is intolerable to the living mind. That's where the "afterlife" comes in - it's a metacognitive defense mechanism that keeps people from going wacky at the thought that death is a senseless, thoughtless void.

That is why religions that portray an afterlife that is based on real-world qualities existed all over the world even before their civilizations encountered each other. Humans are hardwired to need some sort of explanation, which in turn fuels the formation of religious doctrines (amongst other things, of course).

Not all world religions depict an afterlife that is independent of the material world; the mythology of Ancient Greece depicted Hades as a physical location. Many other religions do this in the same way. Even Christianity describes the realms of its afterlife as "heaven above and hell below," ascribing physical, material locations for the afterlife. You may choose to take that metaphorically if you'd like, which is, I'm assuming, what most Christians do today, but you may also take it literally.

 

[9sublime]

Big up to vyo for a great post.

 

[r0beph]

VYO: I think it's POSSIBLE for human minds to conceive nothing and thus absolute void, that's actually the entire premise behind Zen Buddhism. However it is not something that is innate and thus requires learning to be able to do something. As simple as it sounds, declaring nothing and "visualizing" it (although that too is a misuse of visualization, but I don't think there's a word I can apply to "thinking" about non-existence
, or rather, not thinking about existence. ) is much more difficult than you'd assume it is. it requires conceptualization of everthing that isn't as one thing, but there is no detail, no descriptors, no adjectives that adhere to 1:5 of the senses that can be used to describe "nothing/non-existence" However vyo, yes, this is WHY spirituality and religion likely evolved as it did. I believe higher educations and internal social dissemination has enabled the internal conceptualized that has made atheistic thought so readily applicable.

 

[vyo476]

VYO: I think it's POSSIBLE for human minds to conceive nothing and thus absolute void, that's actually the entire premise behind Zen Buddhism.

I see a difference between attempting to attain a state of perfect non-physical perception, the way Zen Buddhists do, and being forced into a state of total non-perception, which is what I'm talking about. Zen Buddhists are attempting to "observe" their true nature by watching their own thoughts and feelings without interference. What I'm talking about is the idea of total, complete nothing. Zero perception. Zero thought. Zero existence.

Admittedly I know little about Zen Buddhism so I could be totally off-base here, and there's no sense in starting another debate in this thread (which already holds several), so if I'm wrong here set me straight and we'll march on forward.

 

[r0beph]

I see a difference between attempting to attain a state of perfect non-physical perception, the way Zen Buddhists do, and being forced into a state of total non-perception, which is what I'm talking about. Zen Buddhists are attempting to "observe" their true nature by watching their own thoughts and feelings without interference. What I'm talking about is the idea of total, complete nothing. Zero perception. Zero thought. Zero existence.

Admittedly I know little about Zen Buddhism so I could be totally off-base here, and there's no sense in starting another debate in this thread (which already holds several), so if I'm wrong here set me straight and we'll march on forward.

Well, forced is the key boolean here. However I think someone who can reach a state where their heartbeat is near imperceptible by mind alone, can likely reach the perceptive, or lack thereof state of Nothing. I myself have "felt" the feeling of what it is likely like. Hypoglycemia does some weird things to the mind/memory and everything. I remember...a MEMORY lacking time, lacking self, lacking everything... which is a strange concept to even try to think about myself... during a rather low blood sugar experience. The memory consists of a blank spot, that exists, but is nothing. Hypoglycemia is the weirdest thing I've ever experienced, including my younger years of psychotropic experimentation. But I'm sure that isn't really what you're talking about.

 

[numinus]

I'm not even going to go in depth here, it doesn't take a brilliant mind to see that this can be explained through science just the same. We have an "intuition" of something more, because it's survival insurance. While someone with no spiritual beliefs, on his own, may be highly intent on not dying, because its his only chance. Those with spiritual beliefs will bind socially with others which has insured the survival of cultural entities. It's not that something MUST exist because we have this intuition, but, as you, people will believe and assume it exists because of this. On another note, aliens are watching us shower. They must be there, because I have this feeling, where's my lithium.

Survival is not the impetus for all rational thought. And if you would only take some time to notice, an idealist world view almost always subverts the imperatives of survival under the imperatives of spiritual ideas.

Just look at buddhism. Is there anything more anti-thetical to the survival instinct as this? More so with its more radical incarnation of zen - the philosophical basis of bushido, the samurai warrior code.

It really is quite simple. Any individual with a rudimentary reasoning faculty can instantly discern immutable principles - like cause and effect or the duality that exist within everything in nature. And it doesn't take additional thought to conclude that what he sees operating in nature must also be operating within himself.

Finally, there is this unusual bias in people towards the scientific. And at the heart of the natural sciences is the empirical method. The thing is, what is empirical is NOT NECESSARILY sensory. Sure, extenal stimulit, by which we are able to 'know', passes through our senses. But still, rational thought occurs in the mind, where all external stimuli is sythesized into human experience.

So, if the amount of people who feel aliens are watching in their showers is statistically significant, any reasonable individual couldn't simply dismiss the notion, could he?

 

[9sublime]

It really is quite simple. Any individual with a rudimentary reasoning faculty can instantly discern immutable principles - like cause and effect or the duality that exist within everything in nature. And it doesn't take additional thought to conclude that what he sees operating in nature must also be operating within himself.

You are only backing up my point here. Humans see fellow humans die, and observe that the body goes nowhere, but the mind is no longer there. He accepts there must be a duality, and makes up some reason for the the body's death not equalling the spirit's death.

 

[numinus]

The human mind is, if I remember correctly, incapable of conceiving true, complete nothingness, therefore the idea that one's mind experiences utter "nothing" after death is intolerable to the living mind. That's where the "afterlife" comes in - it's a metacognitive defense mechanism that keeps people from going wacky at the thought that death is a senseless, thoughtless void.

That is why religions that portray an afterlife that is based on real-world qualities existed all over the world even before their civilizations encountered each other. Humans are hardwired to need some sort of explanation, which in turn fuels the formation of religious doctrines (amongst other things, of course).

Not all world religions depict an afterlife that is independent of the material world; the mythology of Ancient Greece depicted Hades as a physical location. Many other religions do this in the same way. Even Christianity describes the realms of its afterlife as "heaven above and hell below," ascribing physical, material locations for the afterlife. You may choose to take that metaphorically if you'd like, which is, I'm assuming, what most Christians do today, but you may also take it literally.

Defense mechanisms are not functions of rational thought. Often times, they are not even functions of conscious thought.

Metaphysics, on the other hand, is a formal philosophical inquiry that employs the same RULES OF LOGIC as in all the other branches of philosophy, the natural sciences included. Metaphysics differ with any other form human inquiry merely in premise and scope.

Granted, for arguments sake, that metaphysical inquiry derives from some defense mechanism inherent in human organisms, then how are other forms of inquiry different, eh? Is it possible that all are defense mechanisms as well, having no relation whatsoever, to some immutable truth or principle?

 

[numinus]

You are only backing up my point here. Humans see fellow humans die, and observe that the body goes nowhere, but the mind is no longer there. He accepts there must be a duality, and makes up some reason for the the body's death not equalling the spirit's death.

Not at all.

The question you should be asking is why they accept duality to begin with?

And while you're at it, can you imagine your own existence without this duality? It is as indispensable in the way we think and behave as causality.

 

[9sublime]

The question you should be asking is why they accept duality to begin with

Why do they accept it? Because its an easy answer. Look, the body is not going anywhere, but the mind of that person has gone. Wouldn't it be convinient if they can diverge at death, and the mind can go somewhere else...

And while you're at it, can you imagine your own existence without this duality? It is as indispensable in the way we think and behave as causality


Ask Aristotle.

I can imagine my existence without duality, because until my soul leaves my body, there isn't any real duality as far as I'm concerned.