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Is God All In The Mind?


taniwha

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?...and if so how did they get there?...and why? There should be some sort of rational explaination...shouldnt there?... if indeed we live in a purely rational world.

Are believers simply fooling themselves and no one else? Or are skeptics the foolish ones?

A skeptic might ask, where is the proof of God...where is he hiding?

On the skin of things this seems like a righteous enough question, one that we have all asked of ourselves at one point in our lives. Maybe deep down we are all believers, in some case without answers.

But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing?

Do you have any other instances of other miracles or spiritual experiences that has happened to you?

Ideally something manifest in the physical world.

Are there scientific or earthly answers to any of this? Or to all of this?

Is there an idiot proof test perhaps? One that can put rest to the question once and for all,

"Is God all in the mind?"

When or will this mystery ever have closure? Any answers?...Any questions?

Thanks.

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Gods and all those other things are mostly a matter of the culture you grew up in and what you were told as a child before your ability to think critically had matured (I suspect with many it never does).

We have instinctive drives to follow the rules and beliefs of our culture. It is a survival mechanism for the group, and so experience mental problems when we break them (guilt and fear being the main ones) and mental rewards when we "go back" (joy, peace).

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?...and if so how did they get there?...and why? There should be some sort of rational explaination...shouldnt there?... if indeed we live in a purely rational world.

Are believers simply fooling themselves and no one else? Or are skeptics the foolish ones?

A skeptic might ask, where is the proof of God...where is he hiding?

On the skin of things this seems like a righteous enough question, one that we have all asked of ourselves at one point in our lives. Maybe deep down we are all believers, in some case without answers.

But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing?

Do you have any other instances of other miracles or spiritual experiences that has happened to you?

Ideally something manifest in the physical world.

Are there scientific or earthly answers to any of this? Or to all of this?

Is there an idiot proof test perhaps? One that can put rest to the question once and for all,

"Is God all in the mind?"

When or will this mystery ever have closure? Any answers?...Any questions?

Thanks.

No one knows . The people who believe in a god will tell you their reasons why a god exists and the people who don't believe in a god will tell you their reasons for why a god does not exist . We simply do not know , we do not know what our universe is , our understanding of the creation of the universe is a theory , The Big Bang Theory . Belief in God is also a theory . You will believe in what ever your conditioning and experiences bring you to be believe in .
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Take it even deeper, Just cause God is all in your head, that doesn't mean He isn't real.

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Is human beings beliefs in a God or the gods or just the spirits just part of our rational thinking of the unexplained?

Throughout history since recorded time we seem to be dependent on a "higher power" for our beliefs or fears.

Yet there has never been any concrete proof of any being subjugating our existence except for someones belief system that has been programed into them from birth.

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Its like the story of the boy who from birth was chained up in a cave, who his only existence he knows is the boundary and sustenance given to him from the small stream at his feet and the bugs or moss he eats, yet he sees the the shadows dancing on the walls. Would he ever know right from wrong? Of Gods or just the simplicity's of life and death.

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"don't believe everything you think" has served me very, very well.

thoughts are thoughts. just because you think something, doesn't make it true, real, or important.

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?...and if so how did they get there?...and why? There should be some sort of rational explaination...shouldnt there?... if indeed we live in a purely rational world.

Are believers simply fooling themselves and no one else? Or are skeptics the foolish ones?

A skeptic might ask, where is the proof of God...where is he hiding?

On the skin of things this seems like a righteous enough question, one that we have all asked of ourselves at one point in our lives. Maybe deep down we are all believers, in some case without answers.

But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing?

Do you have any other instances of other miracles or spiritual experiences that has happened to you?

Ideally something manifest in the physical world.

Are there scientific or earthly answers to any of this? Or to all of this?

Is there an idiot proof test perhaps? One that can put rest to the question once and for all,

"Is God all in the mind?"

When or will this mystery ever have closure? Any answers?...Any questions?

Thanks.

The problem of course is that everything is in a mind ultimately. There is no way to separate reality from the mind. All people can do is build consensuses, but Carl Jung understood that to arive at consensus averages must be accepted as reality. While this is prudent the fact remains that bell curves always have tails and that human fact is that we cannot measure all possible data points potentially even a miniscule part of them. The scientific method seems powerful but in reality we have no idea how weak or powerful it really is. How can we? In the end only personal exsperiences count. You can tell me "what goes up must come down", but I know it because it's my experience. And it's not even really accurate we have space probes that will never come down.

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"But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing? "

Who said prayer helped at all?

Who declared their was an Official Miracle that had taken place? Did God come down? The Pope? What makes a recovery spiritual or supernatural?

I was hit by a 65 mph car as i crossed a highway, I lived. My body was strong enough that it slowly repaired itself through the many surgerys. Plain and simple.

Edited by jamesjr191
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Is God all in the mind? Yes.

How can we tell? No one knows God except in their mind.

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Of course god is merely in the mind. There is no evidence that a real god exists or has ever existed, no instance of prayer ever having a directly-provable effect, and no recorded instance of an unmistakably miraculous event ever happening. God is just an imaginary friend for adults.

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God, among other things, serves to help some people get a sense of permanence in a world where nothing is permanent and all things are just process that come and go. If you let go and don't grasp for holds on things, you don't need God.

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Irrational beliefs and experiences explained through Science (Check out the Youtube links).

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=272571

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Irrational beliefs and experiences explained through Science (Check out the Youtube links).

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=272571

Please do I even need to look? More God helmet style logic? Come on davros, I have faith that you smarter than simple standardness . Oh wait..... You must be a follower of cupercino or whatever his name is? ;):devil: why don't you define irrational for everyone.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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"But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing? "

Who said prayer helped at all?

Who declared their was an Official Miracle that had taken place? Did God come down? The Pope? What makes a recovery spiritual or supernatural?

I was hit by a 65 mph car as i crossed a highway, I lived. My body was strong enough that it slowly repaired itself through the many surgerys. Plain and simple.

Good points. The fact you were born at all might be defined as a miracle mightnt it? How do You explain your being here?

I wonder given the size and scope of the universe that I exist at all. Why am i here? Inevitability? A chance co-incidence? On a chance planet around a chance sun at a chance time?

Do we really ponder the mystery of our own existence deeply enough to be aware of a spiritual world? I guess there are people who do go their whole lives without experiencing anything miraculous about it, but then i guess there are people who do not, and i would like to hear from them.

I dont know if i need call the Pope to verify one of my experiences as a miracle but i will throw it out there, maybe you can help explain it. I prefer to remain open minded so bear with me if you please.

While praying for a sign of Gods presence, the first time i ever tried ( p.s, i felt utterly silly talking to myself) i wondered how would my prayer be answered?

I waited and waited but no voice in my head or in the room or anywhere, no knocking noises, singing or trumpets. Soon enough i relaxed and laughed, the mind elsewhere now i went out side to make a phone call. It was a perfectly starry night, moonlit as i recall, and completely still. My breath was suspended when i looked above, there was ' hovering' directly over my backyard the only cloud in the entire sky, stretched out in a symmetrical pattern resembling, for there is no clearer description to call it, an Angel. It was lit from underneath, silvergrey from the moonlight bouncing off the ground i guess. Oddly the more i confirmed to myself the contours and appearance and exactness of this 'cloud' the more i felt it also resembled a crucifix. I was a bit trembling. Yes i was alone and no one can verify what i saw.

Now this goes to the heart of the OP and why my interest in the subject. Was this all in my mind? How so if it was? I would tell you honestly without plausible explaination that it was right there where i said and was shaped and coloured how i said.

Did not my prayer manifest into the physical world? Could this be proof of Gods presence? I honestly do not know but i like to believe it is so and also like to believe then that Gods miracles are not just internal, somehow they can be external also.

Having faith and prayer might be more fruitful than some people think including myself.

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Is God all in the mind? Yes.

How can we tell? No one knows God except in their mind.

Then i guess its true that God can be in more than one place at one time.

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"don't believe everything you think" has served me very, very well.

thoughts are thoughts. just because you think something, doesn't make it true, real, or important.

I think at least one has to seek out the truth.

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Take it even deeper, Just cause God is all in your head, that doesn't mean He isn't real.

Exactly, but is God concieved within the minds of men, unlike say, a tree, which is clearly concieved outside of our mind?

Edited by taniwha
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Its like the story of the boy who from birth was chained up in a cave, who his only existence he knows is the boundary and sustenance given to him from the small stream at his feet and the bugs or moss he eats, yet he sees the the shadows dancing on the walls. Would he ever know right from wrong? Of Gods or just the simplicity's of life and death.

Or the story of feral children raised by animals. Very sad. If we know no better it doesnt make us any less human. Wherever we can help others then maybe we should i guess.

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taniwha

(... Furtively checks to see that we're in S vs. S, where frank talk is allowed). You're kidding, right?

... there was ' hovering' directly over my backyard the only cloud in the entire sky, stretched out in a symmetrical pattern resembling, for there is no clearer description to call it, an Angel.

So, because you cannot find different words for the shape of a cloud, God answered your prayer? Carl Jung vivdly and repeatedly hallucinated an old man with wings and a halo who talked with Jung about weighty things, and Jung managed to find other words for that vision than angel. Here's what Carl (a journeyman artist) drew from what he saw:

http://tns.commonweal.org/event-series/archetypal-psychology-series/

In this league, a shapely cloud doesn't cut it. Sorry.

Oddly the more i confirmed to myself the contours and appearance and exactness of this 'cloud' the more i felt it also resembled a crucifix.

Yes, both angels and torture instruments owe much of their shape to the human form.

Was this all in my mind?

No, the cloud was there. There was ambient light to illuminate it. Condensed water vapor aerosol (what clouds are) is typically "silvery gray" (and it was night, so maybe your color vision wasn't fully available anyway). What do you expect a cloud to do except "hover?" "Angel" and "crucifix" are patterns found throughout Western culture, not just in the mind, people paint them and sculpt them, and so forth, making tangible objects.

What was in your mind was the relationship among establishing your mental set (that prayer), changing your physical setting (moving to a perceptually rich environment, outdoors, where you're bound to sense things, to see or hear or smell something), and what happened next, that there was something which, once found, could be said to fit your broad search specification: "Show me something arguably related to religious belief."

Your experience is properly called a synchronicity, in the most basic sense: a coincidence where the two things being connected, prayer and cloud, are related by shared meaning rather than actual causality. It is interestingly difficult for people to "hold on" to synchronicity and not at least toy with the idea of a causal relationship between the things themselves, and that includes the word's inventor, Carl Jung, who seems always to be musing that the unconscious which makes use of the coincidence just might have caused the thing. Which is fine, but that just shows that introducing still another invisible intelligent power (God, that is) cannot be proven on evidence like this. I did mention that I am sorry about that.

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?

To quote from a certain bard...

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;"

To answer your question you would have to understand what 'God' refers to. If 'God' is simply the label we apply to a projection of our own desires, then yes, 'God' exists because our own desires exist. This does not mean that 'God' exists independently of ourselves. 'God' is not a hand, or a foot, or some independent entity, but another name for something others refer to by a different name.

Does this mean 'God' is simply a figment of our imaginations? No more than 'taniwha' is.

Edited by Leonardo
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If religion were wiped out now with no trace... it wouldn't be created again exactly the same way, with the same rituals, names and beliefs.

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?...and if so how did they get there?...and why? There should be some sort of rational explaination...shouldnt there?... if indeed we live in a purely rational world.

Are believers simply fooling themselves and no one else? Or are skeptics the foolish ones?

A skeptic might ask, where is the proof of God...where is he hiding?

On the skin of things this seems like a righteous enough question, one that we have all asked of ourselves at one point in our lives. Maybe deep down we are all believers, in some case without answers.

But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing?

Do you have any other instances of other miracles or spiritual experiences that has happened to you?

Ideally something manifest in the physical world.

Are there scientific or earthly answers to any of this? Or to all of this?

Is there an idiot proof test perhaps? One that can put rest to the question once and for all,

"Is God all in the mind?"

When or will this mystery ever have closure? Any answers?...Any questions?

Thanks.

this reminds me somewhat of a question that RabidMongoose asked in a recent thread he made regarding Plato's Theology.

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