God #1 Family #2

You're the charlatan who pretends to want to discuss things. You keep tripping on your ego.

I really just think you are looking at this in the wrong way and for whatever reason are unwilling or unable to adjust your point of view. I think you limit yourself in that way. Not to say you can't each some height all on your own.

 

so which of them are proper wizards? none of them? you dont know?

simple question, which of those folks have superhuman powers and which do not? how can i tell which are real?

also i have two more i would like you to consider.

are the following beings wizards:

1. vishnu (roughly a zillion zillion folks in india believe he is magic)
2. me

yes or no, please, and how you came to the conclusion would be nice if you are ambitious.

 

Are you asking me if the Pope is an X-Man? It depends on what "powers" you're looking for. I'm less interested in if the Pope can shoot fireballs than I am in if he has attained a high level of mental and spiritual stability and contentment. And how would I know who can shoot fireballs unless we were all privy to that information? I've never met any of those folks and don't subscribe to a secret publication divulging wizardry not meant for the eyes of an atheist.

The magic that I am interested in may seem a lot less boring to you than fireballs, but it isn't my foremost dream to have a adamantium skeleton. All I want is real and true contentment.

How come you don't want to have a real conversation? I imagine I could learn a thing or two from you. Like I said before, you've got the Hannity style of conversation, which isn't conducive to information transfer. That disappoints me. It's really unAmerican of you, SIR!

 

because every thing you say is nonsense, totally unsupported by any evidence, no different than jibberish. all your words are undefined and completely without evidence. i have no idea what your claim is, what you think god is or why, and how you came to that conclusion.

i have no idea how you are able to differentiate whatever it is you believe from something i just made up 10 seconds ago. there is no evidence, no reality. you have no standard for what you are willing to believe, in in fact you believe in some sort of magic, which i guess you do, you dont really answer, just mumble new-age nonsense, like a drunk stripper intolerably babbling about a deepak chopra book she read half of.

i have no clue what you believe. all i know is that you are a harsh critic of not believing in whatever it is you are into. apparently i am an egomaniac because i fail to acknowledge the truth of something you are totally unwilling to describe with terms that have meaning.

you act like there is absolutely no standard whatsoever for believing something. as if critical thinking is some sort of thing only a grumpy jerk would ever consider.

have you heard of logical positivism? here is a quote from the wiki on it:

"the rejection of metaphysics not as wrong but as having no meaning"

this is the deal here. what you are saying is literally meaningless. there is no real reference point. you might as well list random characters.

the phrase "a high level of spiritual stability" is totally meaningless. you ont really answer specific question, you just call me closed minded, as if i supposed to have any idea what you are talking about.

 

I say many have described experiences related to meditation; you scoff at the concept of meditation without seriously trying to understand what that means. I can't tell you here, it is complicated. I'd suggest you read a book. I've offered to email you something and you rejected that offer.

Instead you ask for proof that God shoots fireballs out his ass.

What I believe is incomplete, under-development. I don't pretend to have all the answers and I am not restrained by the need for proof to consider something worthy of exploration. Hard proof can come later or through a personal experience that will not be translatable to those of us like you.

I am willing to consider that there is no God and that we will be no more when we are done, but that does not make me write off the experiences of others that seem to contradict that. I've read descriptions of lucid dreams where contact with another person was made in the dream and then verified in the real world. Not scientific studies, mind you, but it intrigues me.

If there is no God and we peter out when we are dead, I still find it rewarding to seek out calmness and contentment. I appreciate the importance of overcoming the normal psychosis that we all have, but beyond that point I see no harm in seeking out the possibility of God, even if it is done in vain.

I've been flirting with the concept that God is just an idea. I've been considering the possibility that everything we know is an illusion and that none of us and nothing exists. When I try to reconcile the beginning of everything I can't grasp the concept that something always was, it seems to me there had to be a start. But if there was a start, what started that. There is no end to that cycle so I can only figure that we are all nothing; imaginary. Thinking of the cycle actually makes me feel thrown and queasy.

I'd love to discuss this with you, but I expect only ridicule because you are so married to the need for proof. If progress were dependent only on proof we'd be nowhere near as advanced as we are. I like to aim for the stars. I do recognize the usefulness of science, I just don't want to be confined by it. Science is great, but progress is largely dependent on the irrational human imagination.

One of the most vibrant tenants of human imagination is God.

 

i would still like to know if man's perception of religion would change if we were visited by intelligent life from somewhere other than earth. assuming we haven't already that is. i have had a lot of faith based people point out that proof there is a god is earth. we just so happen to be the perfect distance from the sun, with the perfect atmosphere, water everywhere, and we have scanned as far as we can and have found no signs of intelligent life anywhere other than here. sidenote anyone here think that we are the only intelligent life in the universe?

another thing i have wondered and maybe i need to stop smoking so much, but (another hypothetical) if jrr tolkien had lived in the times of jesus or before, and wrote the silmarillion, and had a bunch of loyal followers who thought it was true, would people be worshiping iluvatar? for anyone who is not familiar the silmarillion had a book inside that was about the creation of earth and god was named iluvatar, its very detailed, actually more so than the bible is. to me the bible (new testament) is the most succesful piece of propoganda ever written, a bunch of stories made up based on a guy who did live, to control and strike fear into its believers and potential believers.

 

martin I have a question for you. You continue to ask for scientific proof of God's existance. Is it part of your belief system that God is not, because of scientific findings? big bang theory, theory of evolution, theory or relativity, etc

 

I think martin is probably looking for something along the lines of...

Not speaking for everyone, but mine wouldn't change.

 

we would all be like tom cruise.