I posted this in the Spiritual & Philosophy section but I know it doesn't get to many views so I wanted to get some opinions here. Tell me what you think: I'm not quite sure I agree with you. Many people don't know how powerful the mind can be, and how much external sources can affect the thinking without the person ever knowing. For example, high electro-magnetic field levels can cause visual and audio hallucinations and feelings like someone is watching you or that you aren't alone. If you didn't know that was there, you would completely believe what you saw, you would have absolutely no reason to not believe what you've experienced. So the mind is powerful, but can also be fooled fairly easily. Now, the part about how some people just "know" there's a god, that is absolutely false. They think they "know" god is real, but in truth they've believed in him for so long that their minds accept God as a "scientific law"(only phrase I could think of that was something completely 100% proven). Therefore conciously "knowing" god is real, while subconsciously they've simply been influenced by outside sources. While I'm on my rant I also wanna talk about prayer. Now, I don't believe in many Christian beliefs. But prayer is 50/50. Basically, praying can actually help someone/something, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with God in my mind. See, to understand my theory about prayer you have to know about energy. Qi, as called by the Chinese, is a life force or energy that flows through everything in this world, and can be channeled and sent or picked up if trained (Real quick side note, I believe psychics are able to pick up energy, hence their "powers", they are just more adept and sensitive to the Qi). So, if you are to pray, what you are doing is sending energy to whatever/whoever you are thinking about, therefore effectively helping if the situation is right. Now, before you think I'm crazy and believe in all this "magic" and "mystical" crazy stuff, I am only talking about "powers" because there is no better word to describe what it is. It is nothing crazy, it's how the universe just is. One philosophical "story" says this. If there were to be a cloud in the sky, and people acknowledged it was there, and believed it was there; as would any normal human, we do not question nature, then it would in fact be there. But, if every human were to concentrate their Qi or energy on the fact that it isn't there then it would cease to exist. Now I know I've rambled on for a long time, but everything is in the mind. And as we evolve our minds will get more advanced and our brains will grow and the structure will advance, which could actually be detrimental to our race. With our brains becoming more advanced, the power of the mind will increase, effectively hardening the believe of a "god", and making it that much more believable when our minds are fooled by external sources. Thanks!
Seriously? First, c'mon I put in all that time and you respond with that? And second, if you really mean that, then wow, that goes exactly with my point that external sources can make the brain believe infallacies.
I just wanted to know what people thought about my beliefs, I wasn't preaching. Sorry I came off like that.
I am agnostic and I definately enjoyed reading your post. I think your ideas make a lot of sense, and any hate you get from these blades will be the religious nuts living on the bible belt. +rep
I love how some agnostics find it necessary to attack any human being with a belief other then what they believe, almost as an act of superiority. Sounds as if it's an insecurity crying out for help to me.
If there is a God, would he really send someone to hell just for not believing in him, or not being sure? I'm not religious, but I'm not atheist either. Regardless of whether or not you believe in God, there is wisdom to be found in the bible. The same can be said for almost all other religions. I think it's the message that matters. Believing in God doesn't always mean you're a good person. Not believing in God doesn't always mean you're evil. If there is a God, I don't think he'd want people to tear themselves up inside over whether or not he exists, but to either believe because they truly believe in him, or at the very least live a good life and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I agree 100% Agalloch, I believe there is a God and I follow mostly Christian standards due to the fact like you said wisdom and understanding, yet I disagree with a lot of what they believe, technically making me not a "jesus-follower" but I live for me, not the acceptance of others.
To paraphrase a philosophical maxim, before we can search for truth, we must establish the means to search for truth. You can't search for truth AND the means to search for truth at the same time. One must come before the other. Trying to do both at the same time dooms you to failure.
I always think that you should do good and kind things, even if their is a God or not. Who care what another belives in? Its all about how you treat life. Those are my 0.02
Idk; I disagree with the part I put in bold. I think as humans become more advaned and develop new technology, science will prevail and people will realize that religon and god are man-made. Ancient people used to think thunderstorms were the "gods" becoming angry. Today, we have scientific explanations of how things like thunderstorms happen. I think each generation will be less religous than the prior one; in the U.S. and Europe anyway. I think religon doesn't encourage people to question things; it just explains things as "well god made it that way."
So you don't believe in god cuz he can't be proven, but you believe in Qi which also cannot be proven? Qi runs through chakra's and 144,000 nadis, which also are non existent as far as physical organs go. Thats kind of a contradiction. Also, I was an atheist for a long time but now have a god, though not the xtian one. So no, not everyone who "knows theres a god" thinks that because of lifelong outside influences. My god isn't anything like the biblical god though, he actually makes a little bit of sense as far as who/what he is. I agree as far as your idea of prayer goes, its called a thoughtform, which is why sometimes when entire congregations pray there prayers are 'answered", not because god listened, but because of the sheer amount of power put into a particular thoughtform. I think the reason so many people are atheists is because of how little sense the judeochristian god makes. Theres many more religions out there, that actually make some sense. Just how atheists base their nonbelief on logic, I think it's only logical to "shop around" before coming to a decision, instead of saying "oh this religion doesnt make sense, so none of them do". Being a logical thinker it's almost impossible to believe in yahweh, but theres other religous ideas that make logical sense to a degree, maybe look into them.
I agree with you 100%, But the part about me believing in Qi which isn't proven is misleading. I don't necessarily believe in Qi, in fact I only know the very basic idea of it. I was using it to sort of describe what I believe. It's the idea of it that I was trying to point out.
than it can't be called philosophical. Philosophy is the study to find truth, and to best defend you belifs with things to back it up. You can't say you "think" it works this way just because. Not tryin to be a dick or anything, it just that I'm taking a class for philosophy currently. So don't take it personally bro, but if you intrested in this subject google "15 philosophical questions".