If God Exists, Where is He to be Found?

[Guyver]

5 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

So are you adhering to subjectivism? That nothing objective exist. 

No.  I’m arguing all experiences are subjective and personal, and that absence of evidence is not necessarily absence of fact.

[Guyver]

4 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I'm going to go out on a limb here, socks have souls and the ones that have gone missing were raptured because they were on the foot that was on the right path, so if we ever find those socks we will find god.

jmccr8

Terrible.  Not even close or funny.  Sorry.  

[XenoFish]

4 minutes ago, Guyver said:

No.  I’m arguing all experiences are subjective and personal, and that absence of evidence is not necessarily absence of fact.

If something is fact then its provable.

[Guyver]

7 minutes ago, eight bits said:

@Guyver

The point of evidence is to change belief states. You had a private experience, you found it convincing, you changed, so it was evidence and it did its job.

Now you come to strangers with some interest in changing our belief states. The evidence that was available to you is not available to us. Unless you have something else, then it is unlikely that our belief states will change.

 

Great post as usual Eight.  Yeah....you're prolly right on all counts.  Here's the thing.  To be honest, I don't really care if any of you believe me, and I don't willfully acknowledge a desire to change your belief states.  I do care about all of you....but that's on a personal level because I believe in living that way personally.

Yet....I do believe in the truth.  Not really sure what it is.....but when you hear me speaking around here....for the most part - unless i'm being intentionally witty or joking.....I'm speaking the truth.  I do this because I believe in it.....but also - I'm one searching too.  I'm here listening.....because I am looking for some answers.  The type that actually make sense.....not the ones the "science dudes" are unquestionably going to eventually give.....and that is.....it's all in my head.  It's not real because it defies what is known of reality.

That's the part that bothers me.....and that's why I will argue this shindig out from time to time.  

[eight bits]

2 minutes ago, Guyver said:

To be honest, I don't really care if any of you believe me, and I don't willfully acknowledge a desire to change your belief states.

That's not necessarily a bad thing to want; we're all here (I think) because we're interested in the sort of thing you experienced, how you interpreted it, whether we'd interpret it that way. I probably should have said interested strangers, rather than just strangers.

You're both a truth-teller and a sincere seeker - the perfect conversation partner for grizzly skeptics .

[Aquila King]

14 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

if we ever find those socks we will find god.

...because God's some white bearded dude that wears sandals. NO SOCKS REQUIRED!!!!

[+Sherapy]

1 hour ago, Guyver said:

Do you accept that personal and subjective experiences are in fact real?

i ate a tasty and delicious steak on Sunday morning with a Bloody Mary.  Was that experience real, though not provable?

I do in this case, we eat and we can prove we enjoyed the meal. But not in a case that you touched something that doesn’t actually exist. 

Good luck. 

[XenoFish]

Guyver what isn't in our head. We take in everything through our senses. Looking out these windows we call eyes. Processesing information through one big multifunctional clump of matter. We subjectively experience objective reality. Our brain treats beliefs as facts, and will shift our personal interpretation of what we experience to conform to what we belief, and the bulk of everything we do is a form of self fulfilling prophecy. 

[Guyver]

19 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

If something is fact then its provable.

Not even.

[Guyver]

3 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

I do in this case, we eat and we can prove we enjoyed the meal. But not in a case that you touched something that doesn’t actually exist. 

Good luck. 

Thank you.  I don’t need luck though because I’m not trying to prove it and I know that I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  What I can say is that my experience was real, so it changes my way of perceiving reality.

[Guyver]

15 minutes ago, eight bits said:

That's not necessarily a bad thing to want; we're all here (I think) because we're interested in the sort of thing you experienced, how you interpreted it, whether we'd interpret it that way. I probably should have said interested strangers, rather than just strangers.

You're both a truth-teller and a sincere seeker - the perfect conversation partner for grizzly skeptics .

You’re awesome.  So, it’s simple....I was walking in the rain on the way to church in a new pair of slick dress shoes.  I was walking fast because I was later than I wished to be, and as I reached a place where the pavement receded from the blacktop, I slipped.  I did a full horizontal both legs come out slip, and just before the back of my head, upper-neck region struck the pavement, at the point of the concrete curb, two invisible hands in the middle of my back stopped me from falling and put me on my feet.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Guyver
addition

[+Sherapy]

2 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Thank you.  I don’t need luck though because I’m not trying to prove it and I know that I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  What I can say is that my experience was real, so it changes my way of perceiving reality.

When you say it changes your way of perceiving reality, may I ask was it across the board or circumstantial. 

I would be interested in how your subjective experience led to an ephiphany that led to a perceptual shift. 

The wisdom of subjectivity is valid to me. 

It really doesn’t matter if it was real or not what matters is the wisdom gleaned. 

As a skeptic, this is what I am open to. 

[Aquila King]

@Guyver

Don't worry about others telling you your experience was all in your head. To be quite honest, I don't know whether what you experienced was real and I don't really care. You're not like some religious fanatic trying to take away people's civil liberties over it or attempting to bomb the infidels who don't believe you. At the end of the day, who cares?

Honestly, if you feel you need to insist that someone as harmless as Guyver had a make believe experience or whatever, you seriously need to learn to pick your battles. If you think he's wrong then just let him be wrong.

So yeah, whatever dude. You do you.

[Guyver]

1 minute ago, Sherapy said:

When you say it changes your way of perceiving reality, may I ask was it across the board or circumstantial. 

I would be interested in how your subjective experience led to an ephiphany that led to a perceptual shift. 

The wisdom of subjectivity is valid to me. 

It really doesn’t matter if it was real or not what matters is the wisdom gleaned. 

As a skeptic, this is what I am open to. 

At the time I interpreted in light of my Christian faith.  I no longer have Christian faith....so I have to put that experience - along with many others in a category of “I don’t know and can’t explain.”

Right now, I’m in a place where I believe in God, but I don’t really know much more than that about him, her, whichever.  I like that the Native Americans called and some still do call God great Spirit.  I am a small part Native American as I have been told...so I feel ok calling God Great Spirit. 

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Guyver said:

At the time I interpreted in light of my Christian faith.  I no longer have Christian faith....so I have to put that experience - along with many others in a category of “I don’t know and can’t explain.”

Right now, I’m in a place where I believe in God, but I don’t really know much more than that about him, her, whichever.  I like that the Native Americans called and some still do call God great Spirit.  I am a small part Native American as I have been told...so I feel ok calling God Great Spirit. 

Where exactly is the wrong in that? Does such a belief add meaning to your life? Even if its a small amount? 

[+Sherapy]

2 minutes ago, Guyver said:

At the time I interpreted in light of my Christian faith.  I no longer have Christian faith....so I have to put that experience - along with many others in a category of “I don’t know and can’t explain.”

Right now, I’m in a place where I believe in God, but I don’t really know much more than that about him, her, whichever.  I like that the Native Americans called and some still do call God great Spirit.  I am a small part Native American as I have been told...so I feel ok calling God Great Spirit. 

Did your experience make you value your life more, was it a wake up call... etc etc.

[+Sherapy]

2 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Where exactly is the wrong in that? Does such a belief add meaning to your life? Even if its a small amount? 

You and I are alike, we want to dig deep to the personal meaning. 

 

 

[Guyver]

10 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

When you say it changes your way of perceiving reality, may I ask was it across the board or circumstantial. 

I would be interested in how your subjective experience led to an ephiphany that led to a perceptual shift. 

The wisdom of subjectivity is valid to me. 

It really doesn’t matter if it was real or not what matters is the wisdom gleaned. 

As a skeptic, this is what I am open to. 

I mean to say, that at the time I thought it was my guardian angel....but weirdly....I didn’t actually believe in guarding angels per se.  but I did believe in angels.....and still do to some degree because of what happened.  I don’t know if they are angels or not, but I know they saved me from death, paralysis, or at the least brain damage, spinal chord injury or something akin to that.

[XenoFish]

2 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

You and I are alike, we want to dig deep to the personal meaning. 

 

 

You're a bad influence on me.

[XenoFish]

2 minutes ago, Guyver said:

I mean to say, that at the time I thought it was my guardian angel....but weirdly....I didn’t actually believe in guarding angels per se.  but I did believe in angels.....and still do to some degree because of what happened.  I don’t know if they are angels or not, but I know they saved me from death, paralysis, or at the least brain damage, spinal chord injury or something akin to that.

Question. What was the take away from this experience? Or what did you learn from it? 

[XenoFish]

15 minutes ago, Aquila King said:

@Guyver

Don't worry about others telling you your experience was all in your head. To be quite honest, I don't know whether what you experienced was real and I don't really care. You're not like some religious fanatic trying to take away people's civil liberties over it or attempting to bomb the infidels who don't believe you. At the end of the day, who cares?

Honestly, if you feel you need to insist that someone as harmless as Guyver had a make believe experience or whatever, you seriously need to learn to pick your battles. If you think he's wrong then just let him be wrong.

So yeah, whatever dude. You do you.

Your Xeno side is showing.

[Guyver]

9 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Did your experience make you value your life more, was it a wake up call... etc etc.

No, at the time I somewhat arrogantly shrugged it off because I was “Gods Man” - a preacher of the gospel and these things are normal.

But I wanted to say that the reason I know injury would have been involved is because once I knocked a dude out with a single jab, and I personally know of at least two people dying from their head hitting a curb like that.  

[Guyver]

13 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Where exactly is the wrong in that? Does such a belief add meaning to your life? Even if its a small amount? 

Yeah...nothing wrong with it at all because it’s true.  I guess I’m just saying that maybe the biggest reason I personally believe in God is experiences like this.

[+Sherapy]

1 minute ago, Guyver said:

I mean to say, that at the time I thought it was my guardian angel....but weirdly....I didn’t actually believe in guarding angels per se.  but I did believe in angels.....and still do to some degree because of what happened.  I don’t know if they are angels or not, but I know they saved me from death, paralysis, or at the least brain damage, spinal chord injury or something akin to that.

I get this, it is crazy to think you were stopped by a pair of invisible hands, but you didn’t fall. 

Talk about luck or whatever it was, the point is thank goodness. 

So it sounds like you know how fortunate you were and are grateful.

 

[Guyver]

Anyway, that’s about all I have for now.  Signing out.  Regards.