Who all believes in God? Like genuinely believes that God is responsible for everything that exists and everything that is going to and everything that has happened. Personally, I'm an Atheist that believes that religion is symbolic. That, basically, the Universe and God are the same thing and that God was early man's explanation for how everything became anything. And now we have theories that make more sense, in my opinion, God doesn't really make much sense at all. I completely acknowledge the fact that science is almost completely based off of theories, but I like to look for logic in stuff, and in science there seems to be more logic than hoping, or having faith, that my entire existence is based off of an entity of which gives me no indication, other than some scripture that was written thousands of years ago, that he/she/it exists. I'm sure this post will attract plenty of flame, but I'm genuinely just interested in knowing what people believe and why they believe it. I'm NOT , however, interested in starting a hate war. Kind of hard to not attract that type of stuff to this topic, though. I'm not the type of atheist to go around ramming atheism down everyone's throat, like I said, just curious to hear what people believe and why.
I believe in God because of an experience I had, and others that have happened since. Many theists say that, but most are talking about normal experiences, mine was very different. It was a mystical experience. Is it possible that it was self-created or have some explanation besides God? Sure, but I'm 99.9% sure it was a spiritual experience. Ultimately God must be experienced within to be proved, but everyone is capable of doing it. I don't try to convince people though, there's no point. I can't transmit my experience to others, so it's out of my hands. I believe everyone will return to Spirit though, it's our nature and destiny.
I don't really have a label for my belief system. It's just what feels right to me, it's a mixed up thing but theistic at its core. I believe that there is a supreme form of consciousness that is the essence of consciousness, through a series of filters (the brain/body/whatever else effects us) consciousness arrives here in this form. I'd be theistic because i'd call this supreme consciousness god. Did it create the universe? not sure. Hopefully you can see what i mean when i say "I am god". I tell myself this for a laugh sometimes. I am a bit atheist because I don't believe in the forms of god that would allow god to be a hateful being, a malevolent being. I believe in the forms of god that would be benevolent in nature. I believe in "higher" entities like angels and demons. What I mean by that is I believe there is a way to explain those entities, there is no sense in believing in something if you don't think there is a reason for it happening. Everything has its root in something. In the case of angels and demons, they could be represented as thought forms, memes, superego (angels), Id (demons), patterns of brain activity. At the moment we have no really solid way of explaining these supernatural things, it's all sort of invisible. There are many varieties of hallucination which can be represented by many different patterns of brain activity. We need to split up the cake here and get a solid brain based framework from which to explain hallucinations of all sorts. I like to believe explaining all the supernatural stuff with science doesn't take out the wonder of the subject it only adds to it. and now i will say some basic concepts i've been entertaining, the eternal consciousness one is old though. I believe there is some aspect of consciousness which is eternal. Life is a testing ground of some sort to provide growth for the soul. We create fields with our actions. These fields would be the growth. The supernatural merging into something that can be explained is something of interest to me. Telepathy, hallucinations, psychic ability. I mostly just try to focus on health and living life the way I want to, to each their own. To each their own, really.
I think many people are just embracing the mentality of respecting others and treating people well. They are starting to think that you don't need religion to be a good person. But then some Christians come along and say, "That's not good enough! You must accept Jesus or you're going to Hell!" This scares some people off because it doesn't seem peaceful or good that people would burn forever. (obviously not all Christians say that, but many of them do exist in the world.) A lot of people seem to be moving onto some vague "spiritual, but not religious" mentality instead.
I agree with you, but I was referring more to this particular forum. The OP asked a question of theists and it has been ignored for the most part.
I swear I replied in the thread. Maybe OP posted it in multiple sections? Some strange deja vu going on.
I believe their is a higher power but that is my thinking. I also view science as a religion too however... I mean one believes one god created everything (or acording to your religion) and the other that everything is made of atoms and constantly moving (which neither can proove). Also the rules of physics being bent so the big bang can happen... yet a god couldn't also do all of this... Its all religion
ok got me there. How about when electrons, can be in two places as once when the shift between elctron shells. There are stil loop holes in both.
According to the model, they can only go back to 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang. Nobody really knows what happened before that time, or what the physics was like in that state. So it's possible a God did it, but nobody has any way of showing that it's true or why we should think that, considering nobody knows what anything was truly like before that time period.
Can they be in 2 places at once? I never read up on it. If they are in 2 places at once, then that just means they are in 2 places at once. If scientists don't know how this happens, then that just means they don't know yet. I think a lot of people put way too much thought into what the universe does or how it behaves and how much we know and don't know about it. Scientists are always finding things out about the universe that make them scratch their heads. Nothing surprises me about the universe anymore. lol such a crazy place full of crazy behavior.
^^^^^^^^^Agreed ..Especially about personal experience. I've had enough..haha..to last a lifetime. Just Do and Be. I leave it at that.
How would I go about having the experience if I wanted the experience? How would I also be able to tell that I had the experience? Is it just a certain feeling?
Mine were spontaneous, but anyone can find proof within through meditation, but it takes dedication, more than most curious people are willing to commit.
I thought meditation just gives people certain feelings...? I don't doubt that you felt certain feelings but how would having feelings actually prove anything other than the fact that you felt certain feelings?
Meditation has many different uses, and can help offer lots of insight. And he already said he can't prove it and it's up to the individual, so why persist?
I was just curious. I know meditation can be useful for people, and it can make you feel different. I was just saying that in my opinion, I would probably just view it as experiencing a certain feeling. That would be my individual viewpoint I suppose.