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How to explain existence of God from reality


oslove

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On 9/15/2017 at 5:22 PM, Adampadum123 said:

I want to believe in a creator but how can any half intelligent person   Actually think that there is a god with the world we live in 

worst question ever?  I mean, with that level of bias, you will learn nothing.  

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On 9/16/2017 at 1:19 AM, DieChecker said:

If everything we think and feel is part of reality, then God does exist. Because if something exists in even the imaginings of a single individual, then it exists.

Whether that means God can do miraculous things, and created the universe we all share, is another subject.

Probably the first truly logical/intelligent thing I've read in this thread so far.  

I mean, I'm still blinking at the OP.  Existence is in the mind of man, and also outside the mind of man.  Well, duh.  Yep....that's how it is.  Hello Captain Obvious.  Trip the light fantastic.  

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16 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Probably the first truly logical/intelligent thing I've read in this thread so far.  

I mean, I'm still blinking at the OP.  Existence is in the mind of man, and also outside the mind of man.  Well, duh.  Yep....that's how it is.  Hello Captain Obvious.  Trip the light fantastic.  

Dear Guyver, here is the OP:

Philosophy and Psychology

Exploring and questioning the mind, knowledge and existence.

_________________________________________

I guess this is the board for my idea on how I have come to the existence of God from investigating the reality of existence.

If this topic is not allowed, then just delete it with a note why, okay?

 So, I start with the thought that:

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

Then:

2. Existence is either from oneself or from another.

3. Existence is in the mind of man and/also outside the mind of man and independent of the mind of man.

 I think the three statements above are evident from an honest comprehension of their import.

 Let me start with No. 1, The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

 That means that we need not even bring up why there is something instead of nothing, for such a question is not at all of any relevancy, since when we start with nothing-ness literally nothing-ness, then we have already to evaporate into nothing-ness, in re the purpose of everything in regard to reality: no more thread here and also no more the website of Unexplained Mysteries...

At this point, what do you dear colleagues here say about my thinking in this thread?

You are also welcome to take this thread as on  the philosophy of paranormal investigation.

 

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On 9/17/2017 at 2:58 PM, oslove said:

Take for example, Bertrand Russell compares God to an orbiting teapot in space, and therefore he feels that God is ridiculous, wherefore mankind should not take God seriously.

Russell was an intelligent person, he should not have gone in that direction, but he did and a lot of people follow him in that direction, with having the thought of the flying spaghetti monster for a God concept, and therefore they these people following Russell feel already so certain that God as object does not exist in the world outside and independent of our mind.

Now, the question to ask is: Why did Russell for all is sharp intelligence engage in that kind of wrong thinking?

He didn't engage in wrong thinking, I don't think you've looked closely enough at Russell's writings, there's a lot of them and his teapot analogy is valid.  Here is more information on it from wiki:

Quote

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

 

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3 hours ago, StarMountainKid said:

I think we may consider sub-atomic particles as behavior only, not 'things' that behave. What would be the 'thing' that behaves?  In other words, they have no 'self', they are just events, only behavior with nothing behaving.. 

Things outside our mind and independent of our mind that have a beginning to their existence, the creator cause of everything with a beginning... as you say above. Maybe there is no beginning of existence, only changes of events. The existence of God then would be behavior without some entity behaving. 

You see, dear StarMountainKid, everything that we can and do talk about that is an example of existence, of reality, of being, of entity, of SELF, of thing, etc. etc. etc.

You make a distinction of behavior as not a self and also event as not a self, but that is making discussion more complicated than necessary, unless your purpose is to complicate things so that instead of explaining i.e. making things simple, readers get all muddled up with so many things you want to talk about that are not selves, i.e., instances of existence, of reality, of being, of thing, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Here are three statements which mankind must keep in mind when discussing the existence of God and of all things which are not God but creations of God:

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

2. Existence is either from oneself or from another.

3. Existence is in our mind and/or in the world outside and independent of our mind.

So, when we want to talk about whether a thing at all exists or not, we just have to first investigate where it is to be located in a way, like is it in our mind as a concept, idea, thought, mental picture, etc., etc., etc., anything at all in our mind only, or also in the world outside and independent of our mind, as an object.

You see, Buddhism is into knowledge by meditation, which is all inside the mind of the Buddhist wannabe, Buddhism does not have any tradition of going outside the mind to search for evidence of the things which they meditate on about all inside their mind.

That is why when you study their way of explaining, it is almost always by way of analogy, and also very often by way of posing perplexing questions, like what is the sound of one hand clapping, or when a tree falls in the forest and no one is around does it make a sound.

And ever important, authority of socalled enlightened persons, first and foremost of all, the Buddha [Enlightened] himself, i.e. Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni, whatever, a what we might call today, a native Nepalese, and legend has it that his name from birth was Siddhartha Gautama.

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22 hours ago, I'mConvinced said:

[...]

I'm not sure our ape-like ancestor would agree.

[...]

Dear I'Convinced, please try to think on the basis of our current knowledge, and not bring in the authority of your ape-like ancestors, unless you want to consult today's apes which are still surviving, and no one at all is concerned about their getting to be extinct species, unlike the panda.

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1 minute ago, oslove said:

and not bring in the authority of your ape-like ancestors

Mine? Not ours? Just trying to work out your position, are you a creationist?

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21 hours ago, XenoFish said:

So is the question are maybe answer is that since we exist god has to exist? Sorry but I'm done with theological debates, they never go anywhere. If this is more geared towards spirituality/religion isn't this is the wrong forum section?

If I may, dear XenoFish, please accept the correction about theological debates never going anywhere, namely, that is your opinion.

But see whether you have gone into thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence, on why there is something instead of nothing, that is a theological and philosophical debate issue, and fools like one Lawrence Krauss who is a dishonest thinker, talks about nothing-ness as the source of everything, and want his readers to take his concept of nothing-ness as actually something: so that is the kind of nonsense foolish socalled scientists' talk is about, and naive folks take them seriously as to go about proclaiming, Everything comes from nothing, because Krauss says so.

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3 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Actually I've found that people discover pretty quickly how real reality actually is when they have cancer or some other nasty disease.

It is in mine.

[...]

 

Dear Liquid Garden, you have hit the nail on its head.

You see right away that it is all foolish nonsense talk with foolish thinkers about all kinds of things as delusion or illusion, but they never do any serious thinking founded on investigation into the reality of existence.

Then they get into a situation when the proximity of annihilation by death is ominous, like the sickness of cancer, that is the time even the most fanatical Buddhist devotees of no self, seek with tremendous frenetic haste for doctors to save them by keeping them alive i.e. in the existence of the self.

Lesson here is that all talks about no self, that is all nonsense, unless it is just a psych0logical prop for socalled Buddhist masters to convince people to not put too much attachment on things which to Buddhist masters are so vacuous.

But then you have to witness how Buddhist masters live, that goes also of course with all religious preachers like Christian retreat masters of no attachment to the world.

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10 minutes ago, oslove said:

Lesson here is that all talks about no self, that is all nonsense

You summed it up right there.

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23 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

From Oslove:

On 9/17/2017 at 7:58 PM, oslove said:

Now, the question to ask is: Why did Russell for all is sharp intelligence engage in that kind of wrong thinking?

He didn't engage in wrong thinking, I don't think you've looked closely enough at Russell's writings, there's a lot of them and his teapot analogy is valid.  Here is more information on it from wiki...

[...]

DearLiquidGarden, Russell is a psychotic liar, you know that he gave up math and philosophy, when asked why by an exclusive girls school principal, it is reported that he replied, "Because I discovered *******."

You see, Russell thought that he was a terrific math and philosophy thinker, he made the mistake of marrying the daughter of an American very rich devout Quaker family, and lived on them, then he left his wife because he could no longer bear the disgrace of living off his in-laws.

Next, in most particular with Wittgenstein his student, he came upon his most devastating comeuppance, namely, he is nothing of any terrific math and philosophy thinker.

So, he at least like a cunning fox took to social issues like women's liberation, and then into finally the hero of pacifism, by which he was awarded the Nobel prize, but not for peace but for literature, as a kind of token recognition like what Spaniards call 'consuelo de bobo' that he did write against US nuclear obsession.

Do you know that in one phase of his long life he advocated systematic cleansing of too much useless peoples, to make a better world for mankind of his own class?

Now, I like for you to tell me, when some impertinent kid makes an analogy of your parents as flying apes, what do you do, tell him that he is so resourceful with his imagination?

There is validity of thinking on analogy, when it is founded on experiences of mankind, but not when the obvious purpose is to resort to argument by ridicules, that is to betray oneself as a liar.

For example, we have the saying: like father like son, so also monkey see monkey do.

Here the analogy is founded on our experiences on how children take to their parents, wherefore monkeys also take to their parents and ALSO to folks who look like their parents.

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Addnressing Ouija Ouija:

Dear Ouija, you have had a very good query or observation in your notice to me that I have to show how my concept of God should transit to the existence of God.

I explained to you that with the concept of God in our mind, namely, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning, we set forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek for evidence of the existence of God, by looking up all instances of beings which have a beginning to their existence.

And we come to the certainty that in the world outside and independent of our mind, everything including the universe itself has a beginning.

So, there, that is the conclusion from evidence, namely, of everything existing in the world has a beginning, including the universe itself: that they are all evidence of the existence of God, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

Dear Ouija, please teach me something that is the best fruit of serious thinking from you, instead of bringing up a nitpick like why I address God as He, is He a male?

Dear readers here, I am awaiting with bated breath to read what Ouija has to teach me, some best fruit of his best thinking?

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4 hours ago, oslove said:

I guess this is the board for my idea on how I have come to the existence of God from investigating the reality of existence.

Oslove, I can see that you are a polite person, and you're thinking about things.  I appreciate the topic of your thread, and I had read the OP.  Re-posting was not necessary.  I said I was blinking at the OP because the things you're stating here are so obvious as to almost need no explanation.  For example, you said that existence is either in or mind or outside our mind.

What else is there?  I mean, that's all that is.  Now, I will grant that the nature of existence is certainly not fully understood....and certainly that's why we debate/discuss these things.  I also grant that reality is not always as it seems.  For example....look at a wall.....the side of a house.  Let's say it's a smooth coated stucco type finish.  It appears smooth externally and from our perspective.  But, as we begin to look more closely at the wall, and magnify our view, we can see that it's actually quite rough.  If we continue until we are looking at a highly microscopic view, or even on the atomic level....we see that the solid wall is actually mostly comprised of empty space.  Yet, that's not how we experience it.  If we bang our head on it, we will get a bruise or headache; or both.

Perhaps I've missed something here.....but how does this lead you to the conclusion that God exists?

 

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1 hour ago, oslove said:

Dear readers here, I am awaiting with bated breath to read what Ouija has to teach me, some best fruit of his best thinking?

Smugness is next to godliness, as they say.

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22 hours ago, oslove said:

DearLiquidGarden, Russell is a psychotic liar, you know that he gave up math and philosophy, when asked why by an exclusive girls school principal, it is reported that he replied, "Because I discovered *******."

Yes Russell grew older and was human and had to deal with his own personal issues later in his life.  Too bad that has nothing to do with the validity of what he said and the arguments he made, which you didn't make any comment on or even attempt to refute the logic of.  Rare to see an entire post dedicated to making fallacious ad hominem attacks, but I guess it's easier than making an argument against his point.

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I kinda appreciate Russels answer there, ah hem, from a strictly philosophical point of view...

Any one else read the story of the emperor who was gifted an extremely rare toad found within his empire? Might have even had some medicinal properties or some such non sense.

The emperor wanted to put the frog on display for all the people to come and gawk, but first he wanted the resident sage to come admire the specimen with him.

A soldier was sent to find the sage, and upon finding his quarry deep in the woods by a river stream, the soldier explains to the sage what is happening at the emperors hotspot and how his presence is requested.

The sage ask, "this toad you speak of, do you imagine it would rather be in that cage for all those people to gawk and point fingers at? Or might you suppose it would rather be here in this stream dragging its tail through the water?"

The soldier answers "i imagine it would prefer to be here in the water." 

The sage replies, "then so shall i stay here and drag my tail through the water."

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21 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I'm not sure what 'no-mind' and 'non-conceptual mind' specifically mean to you.  If it's literally 'no mind' then I'm not sure why we're bothering to ask questions and use language at all, that requires a mind.  Same thing with non-conceptual mind; if 'reality is not a concept of the mind', then I'm not sure why there would then be a question about relating reality to God since those two words don't mean anything without concepts behind them.  I'm not a Buddhist though, so I may be making the mistake of taking these terms too literally.

"When I look at things all I see is mind, when I look at mind all I see is things." Is mind things, concepts, thoughts? Are these all mind is, or is mind separate from these? Do we have some original mind untouched by thought, concept? 

It seems to me we must first have a clean sheet of paper before we can write upon it. We usually see what's written and ignore the paper, but the paper is the fundamental importance. I'm just saying, in relating reality to God we're using the mind, and what is this mind we're trying to use?

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1 hour ago, StarMountainKid said:

"When I look at things all I see is mind, when I look at mind all I see is things." Is mind things, concepts, thoughts? Are these all mind is, or is mind separate from these? Do we have some original mind untouched by thought, concept?

I don't know what functions we think a 'mind' would be performing without thoughts and concepts.  When I look at things I wouldn't say that all I see is mind, the mind is almost a hidden interface in that it is essential for doing the seeing in the first place.

1 hour ago, StarMountainKid said:

It seems to me we must first have a clean sheet of paper before we can write upon it. We usually see what's written and ignore the paper, but the paper is the fundamental importance. I'm just saying, in relating reality to God we're using the mind, and what is this mind we're trying to use?

I agree to an extent, but I don't think we ever have a clean sheet of paper actually, but I agree as you put it that the paper is of fundamental importance.  We already have some pre-programming at birth, our experiences form the 'paper', etc, it's not just a 'clean' sheet; it is a sheet that favors certain things to be written upon it and tries to repel other things from being written on it. 

The mind we are trying to use to relate reality to God is the same mind we use for everything else I'd assume.  An original mind that is literally untouched by thought or concept can't be used to relate reality to God because 'reality' and 'God' are both concepts and require thought to even ascribe any meaning to and to do the relating.

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20 hours ago, Guyver said:

[...]

Perhaps I've missed something here.....but how does this lead you to the conclusion that God exists?

 Dear Guyver, I guess you missed reading my post preceding your post above.

Here, I am reproducing it for you to read [see below in Annex].

Concentrate on the lines in underscore, that answers your question how from the concept of God in man's mind, as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning, we go forth into the objective world that is outside and independent of our mind to look for evidence, which evidence brings us to the certainty of God's existence, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

 

Annex

Posted 21 hours ago ·  From Oslove | Post #87

______________________________

 

Addressing Ouija Ouija:

Dear Ouija, you have had a very good query or observation in your notice to me that I have to show how my concept of God should transit to the existence of God.

I explained to you that with the concept of God in our mind, namely, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning, we set forth into the world that is outside and independent of our mind, to seek for evidence of the existence of God, by looking up all instances of beings which have a beginning to their existence.

And we come to the certainty that in the world outside and independent of our mind, everything including the universe itself has a beginning.

So, there, that is the conclusion from evidence, namely, of everything existing in the world has a beginning, including the universe itself: that they are all evidence of the existence of God, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

Dear Ouija, please teach me something that is the best fruit of serious thinking from you, instead of bringing up a nitpick like why I address God as He, is He a male?

Dear readers here, I am awaiting with bated breath to read what Ouija has to teach me, some best fruit of his best thinking?

 [ End of Annex ]

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20 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Yes Russell grew older and was human and had to deal with his own personal issues later in his life. [...] ...but I guess it's easier than making an argument against his point.

He was a psychotic chronic liar with his continuous lying in ridiculing God as a orbiting teapot in space.

What is there to rebut, unless you are enamoured with him and his lies.
 

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In re, Buddhist meditation in the mind to what, to get to enlightenment on what, pray?

There is an anecdote from Russell himself that when he was tutored at home by a philosophical type of a tutor, the latter was trying to make him understand the distinction between mind and matter.

The youngish rascal told his tutor: "What is mind, it's not matter; what is matter, never mind."

That is the trouble with Buddhists, as I said, they are altogether meditating inside their mind on the no self, but they don't ever come out into the objective world independent of their mind, as thinkers of the West do, namely, to experience life and draw conclusions on it: I call that in opposition to enlightenment by meditation in the mind, the empirical-rational epistemology.

The old rascal Russell at least shows us to employ the empirical-rational epistemology, even though he preferred to lie when the topic is the existence of God; he tells us when he was much much younger at home in reply to his tutor, thus:

"What is mind, it's not matter; what is matter, never mind."

I understand that line as that never stay stuck with your mind that you miss altogether life outside your mind.

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2 hours ago, oslove said:

So, there, that is the conclusion from evidence, namely, of everything existing in the world has a beginning, including the universe itself: that they are all evidence of the existence of God, in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

 

Thank you for responding.  Yes, the universe had a beginning.  And, a causal chain cannot be of infinite length; therefore the universe had a cause.

Yet....this doesn't prove God exists.  It proves the universe had a cause.

Nice exercise though.  Thank you for your contribution.  

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23 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I don't know what functions we think a 'mind' would be performing without thoughts and concepts.  When I look at things I wouldn't say that all I see is mind, the mind is almost a hidden interface in that it is essential for doing the seeing in the first place.

We may confuse what we see as mind when actually what we see are things. In our mind a thing is a think, so do we see the thing itself or our mental concept of it?

 

23 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

The mind we are trying to use to relate reality to God is the same mind we use for everything else I'd assume.  An original mind that is literally untouched by thought or concept can't be used to relate reality to God because 'reality' and 'God' are both concepts and require thought to even ascribe any meaning to and to do the relating.

Can we relate to the world without our consciousness filtering everything through our preconceptions, experiences, knowledge, memories, thoughts, etc.? Actually, mind is transparent and silent in that it accepts what is without distortion. Then we may consciously or unconsciously begin to categorize everything according to our personality or current situation, our moods, our repetitious thoughts,  etc., so that in these states we are actually seeing all these 'things' that are in our conscious mind and not the reality of what is itself. 

Reality is observation of what is without these personal distortions. So, perhaps in this untouched reality, we become closer to God (whatever it may be) than in all of our concepts. 

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On 9/15/2017 at 1:17 PM, oslove said:

So, I start with the thought that:

 

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

 

Then:

 

2. Existence is either from oneself or from another.

 

3. Existence is in the mind of man and/also outside the mind of man and independent of the mind of man.

 

 I think the three statements above are evident from an honest comprehension of their import.

 

 Let me start with No. 1, The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

 

 That means that we need not even bring up why there is something instead of nothing, for such a question is not at all of any relevancy, since when we start with nothing-ness literally nothing-ness, then we have already to evaporate into nothing-ness, in re the purpose of everything in regard to reality: no more thread here and also no more the website of Unexplained Mysteries...

1.   Human consciousness developed within existence.  That does not imply it is the default state of the universe.  It may be like the exited state of an atom.  The ground state may be no existence.  But lets take existence as the basis for the universe we live in, good enough.

2 Existence is either from oneself or another.  That cannot be axiom #2.   To get to "oneself or another" you posit awareness, and differentiation  Those do not follow from existence.  Hidden in your logic is:

2a There is awareness.

2b There is differentiation.

Those may not be a priori assumptions that all can agree to accept.

Existence without awareness and differentiation is transition from allowable states and perhaps back again.  There is no oneself and no another.

Existence is in the mind of man.  This is also an assumption.  It cannot be derived from #1 and #2.  It is an axiom in your proof. This is a wonderfully Aristotelian world view.  Greek thought was based on the beauty of a theorem not its congruence with reality.

Maybe you could say awareness is in the mind of man.  All of this is an  assumption on your part, not a provable statement.  This is exactly Russell's position on the teapot.  "I have made a statement that you cannot disprove, therefore it must be true."

Finally in  statement #3 you equate thought and supposition within the mind with physical manifestation in a very physical existence.  This also does not follow.  This is the basis of fairy tales in addition to some religions.  It does not follow that if an individual can dream it or think it that it affects the perceived reality of other aware entities.  Like Vegas, what goes on in your mind stays in your mind.  If you assume otherwise, you are sitting in Russell's teapot again, and are forced to accept that all imaginings are equally true whether they offer information about existence that others can confirm or not.  Bottom line is that if all the truth in your mind does not affect my reality in any observable way, then I cannot confirm its existence.

Are you assuming that awareness proves the existence of God?  leave off prove and you are good to go.  Awareness in your mind can create God in your mind without any observable impact on existence that others can observe.

 

 

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