God and Universe

[Mr Walker]

4 hours ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

I have often heard believers use this sort of argument. "Look at the trees" "The proof is all around you" etc.

IF god exists, and IF god wants me to acknowledge its existence, then god (literally) knows exactly what it would take to convince me. Whether that evidence would consist of a Cecille B DeMille type fiery cyclone carving out a personal letter to me in stone, or a selfie with me and god visiting the Ark Encounter and laughing at the stupidity I have no idea.

But surely, the grand creator and chief poobah of the universe would be able to convince lil ole me of his existence, IF:

a - he does in fact exist;

b - actually cares if people believe or not

 

And, on a personal note: I like the new way you are responding to questions Will. More effective for exchanging ideas than your old pattern, wouldn't you agree? 

Maybe will meant some people wouldnt see or recognise god even if he appeared before them in person and did something radical. 

[Mr Walker]

3 hours ago, danydandan said:

The truth is absolute is it not? Putting absolute in front of emphasises and reinforces it, kind of! Actually saying absolute truth is a redundant statement.

Something is either true or false, can't be both. Can it? 

 

True, but some truths are more simple, objective, and self evident to humans than others eg "you will drown under water if you try to breathe'  compared "to one third of smokers who do not stop smoking will die from the effects of their smoking"  

[Mr Walker]

3 hours ago, GoldenWolf said:

Your personal experiences aren't others.

That wasn't what will was saying. he pointed out that some people's disbelief prevents them physically or psychologically seeing and perceiving something which exists right in front of them. 

[Mr Walker]

2 hours ago, joc said:

Why do we even need to share our own subjective experiences?  If we do share them...like minded people will agree...and others will not.  Feeling a need to share one's own subjective experience to a room that doesn't care about them is...what exactly...a need for something...to be worked out in one's own personal mind space.

it goes to knowing and trusting those around us. While some might lie , basically the more we know about anothers' beliefs and values the more we can trust  them in their behaviours (or predict them,  and thus feel safer) . It is why even non believers, in surveys,  say they trust believers more than atheists 

it is an evolved psychological preference because it is needed to establish a cooperative society and community  

[Mr Walker]

1 hour ago, joc said:

We have churches on every corner...or other groups of like minded individuals.  The key word there is 'like minded'.  

You want laws that govern the subjective aspects of our lives? Some countries do have those.  The Leaders of those countries are known as Tyrants.

Only if it is not done with the democratic consent of the people. 

[Jodie.Lynne]

2 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

That wasn't what will was saying. he pointed out that some people's disbelief prevents them physically or psychologically seeing and perceiving something which exists right in front of them. 

That is a false premise, IMO. 

Yes, someone could lack the sense of sight or hearing due to disability, but to claim that someone can't see or believe what is in front of their eyes is nonsense.

It's my belief that far too many people leap to assumptions about 'mystical experiences' or encounters with the 'supernatural'. In part because they have a psychological need to believe.

[Jodie.Lynne]

4 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

It is why even non believers, in surveys,  say they trust believers more than atheists 

Please, oh pretty please, cite a source for this statement!

[+joc]

47 minutes ago, Anna101 said:

Absolutely. 

This is the truest thing.

Sorry, I don't know the context you fully meant though. I wouldn't like to assume but if I may expand on what your comment drew out in me please.

The way I see things is The Creator never left. We have been taken advantage off to the point where we don't even trust each other or our own natural intelligence but it has to begin with the individual. It cannot begin with a book or laws (as The Creator) because this creates duality. With duality comes a burden on our intelligence which locks us in our foreheads, whether we claim to be religious or not. I've seen it so much. People still basically carrying all their prejudices, fears, defensivenesses etc. Just with different jobs but all paying taxes to governments who kill us.

Also there are different types of intelligence so it is important to know and identify early how our individual intelligence develops... 

My overall solution would entail a new program of multi-versal education where children are simply to meet a set number of people (3000 by age 18) and visit a set number of places within four year periods, with every child being given a certificate of travel at birth which enables them to travel anywhere in the world.

Ahhh, Tesla was right. It is about the inner world. We are in this state of distraction and not knowing because we have been taught to think this way because of capitalistic family bloodlines who screw nations over alllllll the time.

I don't think we are even really meant to look as we do.. that's how deep the Matrix is. It's not sci fi. It's true **** 

There is an episode of Star Trek Voyager which springs to mind to use as a highlight; the one where these reptillian beings take over the ship but the beings are all asleep on a planet elsewhere... I think this is a reference to the reptillian part of our brain and the necessity to actually openly use our intelligence first. Tesla said we will make our greatest progesses, EVER within 10 years. Look at what he achieved. He failed because he was alone in how he used his intelligence.

 

My musings anyway lol x

 

Thanks for sharing your musings.  All I am really saying is that we have the ability to control our own thoughts....and that is about as far as our real power goes.   

My overall solution would entail individuals to open their hearts.  We build fortresses around our hearts to keep some people in, and other people out.  If we can find the inner strength to bulldoze down our own fortresses....we become free.  

[Mr Walker]

11 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

Please, oh pretty please, cite a source for this statement!

Why? it is a fact and well known.  if you dont believe me, seek to disprove it and you will find the sources yourself.  

it goes to why anthropologists and psychologists believe common faiths emerge . and why importance is put on belief

 

it does not have to be religious faith it also works for belief or trust in other authority figures 

Eg shown a picture or symbol of faith people acted more honestly or generously  Shown a symbol of a policeman they acted very similarly. 

 

oh damn it I am just too soft hearted Here is one such study.

 https://asunow.asu.edu/20180406-asu-study-looks-why-religious-people-are-trusted-more-non-religious-people

Think of someone you trust. What is it about them that makes them trustworthy? In general, religious people are more trusted than people who are not religious, and researchers in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University have found explanations for why that is.

 

It actually takes the known/established  fact that relgious people are more trusted and investigates WHY this may be so 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Jodie.Lynne]

2 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Why? it is a fact and well known.  if you dont believe me, seek to disprove it and you will find the sources yourself.  

I can disprove it right now:

I'm an atheist, and you are a believer and I don't trust the statement you made.

Speaking for myself, I don't trust people by whether or not they believe in god. The trust comes from accumulated mutual experiences, shared.

However, there are certain believers I would never trust, based on some of their beliefs, no matter how many shared experiences I had with them.

 

[Mr Walker]

11 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

I can disprove it right now:

I'm an atheist, and you are a believer and I don't trust the statement you made.

Speaking for myself, I don't trust people by whether or not they believe in god. The trust comes from accumulated mutual experiences, shared.

However, there are certain believers I would never trust, based on some of their beliefs, no matter how many shared experiences I had with them.

 

Na you're the exception My statement was a general one. Humans trust believers more.

Well established in various  psychological tests and surveys.  

 

“People are less interested in the specific beliefs of another person,” Moon said. “They want to know how that person is going to behave, and religion suggests what kind of person they might be.”

The researchers believe that the findings from this study could suggest ways to counteract the distrust of non-religious people, which are a growing segment of the American population.

“The psychology of religion focuses on why people believe what they believe and the effect on their lives,” Cohen said. “We think it is just as important to examine how religious people act and how that affects their lives.”

 

https://asunow.asu.edu/20180406-asu-study-looks-why-religious-people-are-trusted-more-non-religious-people

 

Here is a bit more detail from another source 

 

Research has consistently found that religious people are judged as more trustworthy than the nonreligious. A new study published in Psychological Science has found evidence that this is because religious people are viewed as slow life history strategists.

 

“Past work has revealed interesting links between religion and life-history strategies. In short, it seems like attitudes about sexuality and the family are one of the biggest drivers of religious belief. We were interested in the implications of this fact for social behavior,” said study author Jordan W. Moon of Arizona State University.

In three separate studies with a total of 1,173 participants, the researchers found that religious people were viewed as followers of slow life strategies.

The participants tended to assume that religious people had a nicer upbringing, were more committed to romantic relationships, less impulsive, less aggressive, and more educated. This, in turn, predicted religious people being viewed as more trustworthy.

“There is a consistent finding that religious people are trusted — even by nonreligious people and members of other religious groups,” Moon told PsyPost. “One might assume that this has something to do with belief in God or gods — perhaps religious people are more trustworthy because they believe they will be punished for immoral behavior, or maybe nonreligious people threaten the values that many people hold.”

https://www.psypost.org/2018/04/religious-people-trusted-assumptions-life-strategies-study-finds-51009

 

this article is more ambivalent but still makes the same point 

https://theconversation.com/are-religious-people-more-moral-84560

According to psychologist Ara Norenzayan, belief in morally invested gods developed as a solution to the problem of large-scale cooperation.

Early societies were small enough that their members could rely on people’s reputations to decide whom to associate with. But once our ancestors turned to permanent settlements and group size increased, everyday interactions were increasingly taking place between strangers. How were people to know whom to trust?

Religion provided an answer by introducing beliefs about all-knowing, all-powerful gods who punish moral transgressions. As human societies grew larger, so did the occurrence of such beliefs. And in the absence of efficient secular institutions, the fear of God was crucial for establishing and maintaining social order.

In those societies, a sincere belief in a punishing supernatural watcher was the best guarantee of moral behavior, providing a public signal of compliance with social norms.

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Jodie.Lynne]

2 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Na you're the exception My statement was a general one. Humans trust believers more.

OI!

Are you saying I'm not Human? You must have caught me without my make up.

[Jodie.Lynne]

9 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

One might assume that this has something to do with belief in God or gods — perhaps religious people are more trustworthy because they believe they will be punished for immoral behavior, or maybe nonreligious people threaten the values that many people hold.”

That has not been my experience.

[Mr Walker]

3 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

OI!

Are you saying I'm not Human? You must have caught me without my make up.

lol

No. you are a human, but  you are not all humans. ie you are a specific human but not representative of humans in general (with or without your makeup)  

[Mr Walker]

2 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

That has not been my experience.

As i said, you are one of the exceptions.  It (your experience)  goes to why you found this fact hard to accept. It does not resonate with your own understandings . None the less, it is true. 

[SHaYap]

birds of a feather flocks together, religious people tends to trust other religious people of similar religious backgrounds ... pots and kettles makes for poor examples of good or bad kitchens

As of late, someone exhibiting certain Middle Eastern Muslim traits can't even walk down a street with a large grocery bag without eliciting sentiments concerning and regarding trust.

~

[Anna101]

44 minutes ago, joc said:

Thanks for sharing your musings.  All I am really saying is that we have the ability to control our own thoughts....and that is about as far as our real power goes.   

My overall solution would entail individuals to open their hearts.  We build fortresses around our hearts to keep some people in, and other people out.  If we can find the inner strength to bulldoze down our own fortresses....we become free.  

I see the same viewpoint about the heart and thanks for listening. I love this topic. It is so interesting how people make sense of their place in the world. I value these moments.

I think our diets have been used to hinder us greatly. We are supposed to eat directly from the Earth. That's how we stay connected to The Great Mother. So they re-engineered seeds so we can't help ourselves. Big pharma, blah blahhh

I muse but I don't believe we can turn things around anymore. I used to try so hard before and really it was unnecessary.

Honestly, I think that there are eras and consciousness itself rises to a point whereby the Earth itself releases us and this has always been the case, every 26.000 years or so. All those ancient top notch civilisations that vanished.. The very beautiful Cathars in France. There were other indigenous people who have experienced the same too. They weren't all slaughtered. I have seen accounts where The Cathars were completely silent as they were killed. That was the level of natural Grace they had. They had technologies to aid the natural torus field of the human body.

It's the Earth itself which moves things on. We just need to stay close to her and each other willfully and intelligence itself works things out x

[Mr Walker]

12 minutes ago, third_eye said:

birds of a feather flocks together, religious people tends to trust other religious people of similar religious backgrounds ... pots and kettles makes for poor examples of good or bad kitchens

As of late, someone exhibiting certain Middle Eastern Muslim traits can't even walk down a street with a large grocery bag without eliciting sentiments concerning and regarding trust.

~

Even atheists trust believers more than other atheists and it doesn't matter what belief you  have People of one belief trust those of another, more than they trust atheists 

Your point about Muslims would seem to be true a least anecdotally  but it hasn't shown up in surveys or testing as yet.

MAybe we still see them as honest god fearing people despite a propensity to violence and terrorism

For example, many westerners would trust a muslim woman, dressed in a hijab,  not to shop steal, more than they would  a western woman in revealing clothes,  even though the former would have more chance of concealing stolen items. 

Maybe that is because the hijab is a declaration  of a strict morality,  while the western woman gives no open declaration of her own beliefs or moralities 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

1 hour ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

That is a false premise, IMO. 

Yes, someone could lack the sense of sight or hearing due to disability, but to claim that someone can't see or believe what is in front of their eyes is nonsense.

It's my belief that far too many people leap to assumptions about 'mystical experiences' or encounters with the 'supernatural'. In part because they have a psychological need to believe.

No its not nonsense it is a matter of the way the human mind controls our body, and determines what we see, (often what we choose to see)  how we perceive it, and how we feel

There are two parts of course.

i agree that it is far less likely that you would not see a god standing in front of you, BUT it would be quite common for you not to recognise it as a god 

Strong enough belief can cause people  to see what is not  there 

Strong enough disbelief can cause people not to see what is there 

At least that is the supposition will was working from, and it has some scientific evidences to support it 

When i can see an angel and another can also see it, but not know it for what it is,  is an example of this  but, more  mundanely I can see ANYTHING i know and recognise from history,  while another with no knowledge of history or archaeology might not " see" it a t all Eg I can discern an aboriginal scraper from  a flake of rock, by the napping on its edge and so will stop and pick it out from dozens of rocks, but another person might walk right over it   I can see a cowrie on a beach from 20 feet away and will stop and pick it up, while another will walk right over it, without noticing it is there That is because my wife and I have been collecting shells for 40 years.  

Edited January 13, 2019 by Mr Walker

[cormac mac airt]

46 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

That has not been my experience.

Mine either. I've seen my share of religious people I wouldn't trust any further than I could throw them and plenty of non-religious people I would trust with my life. Religion hasn't made anyone any more trustworthy than anyone else in my experience. 

cormac

[Mr Walker]

  8 hours ago, danydandan said:

Forget the analogy I presented. 

My point was that you shouldn't question what you see or hear when seeing and hearing, that will get you killed. You should question them afterwards, as objectively as possible. 

Put it this way habitat, a simple question. I assume you have seen star wars and Queen's song We Are The Champions? 

1. Can you recall the famous line Darth Vader says to Luke? 

2. How does that famous Queen song end? 

Cant remember the first. As to the second,  the misconception comes from  two different versions of the song  Only once (from  memory ) maybe at the original performance, did the words we often think enfed the song do do 

I know both these are used as examples  of false memories but, from memory,  there are reason s why both went into the collective memory, incorrectly 

 

New Song ME. We are the champions By QUEEN, Ending no longer contains "OF THE WORLD"

New ME. WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS by QUEEN, ENDING NO LONGER CONTAINS "OF THE WORLD" Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04854XqcfCY

He still sings it in the live version, for now :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPKlrRwJB8A

But its vanished in the studio one, heres Gwen Stefani, George Clooney, Julia Roberts And James Corden experiencing the M.E together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsLkP-dq93A

First time posting here, this past week has been a mind bending one to say the least. I am sure this is not how the song ended, how about you, was it always like this?

The seven dwarve's  song is another which actually has two sets of the same verse slightly different and some people deny one exists. 

 

 

 

[Habitat]

8 hours ago, danydandan said:

Forget the analogy I presented. 

My point was that you shouldn't question what you see or hear when seeing and hearing, that will get you killed. You should question them afterwards, as objectively as possible. 

Put it this way habitat, a simple question. I assume you have seen star wars and Queen's song We Are The Champions? 

1. Can you recall the famous line Darth Vader says to Luke? 

2. How does that famous Queen song end? 

Not being a popular culture thrall, I have no answers for those two questions, or even have any inkling of why you ask ! And as for "You should question them afterwards, as objectively as possible. ", it is routine for people to reflect on happenings in their lives, but it is also common for people to find that continually second-guessing themselves does not necessarily improve the strike rate of reaching the "right" conclusion. The initial impression is often the right one, and for people to assume their preconceptions trump your direct observation, is little more than arrogance.

[+joc]

22 minutes ago, Anna101 said:

I muse but I don't believe we can turn things around anymore. I used to try so hard before and really it was unnecessary.

The planet has always been a volatile environment.  Humans have always sought to control each other. Nothing has changed.  Nothing ever really changes...we have always had one thing we had absolute control over...if we have any control over anything at all it is our own thoughts.  There is nothing to turn around...except our own perspectives.

[SHaYap]

3 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Even atheists trust believers more than other atheists and it doesn't matter what belief you  have People of one belief trust those of another, more than they trust atheists 

You were grasping at straws trying to over extend your point with your normal pretenses at fully comprehending the facts. Relying on flimsy claims of simplistic logic match by presenting a poor example based on such conditional set of a bias based study did'nt get you anywhere, trust is based on a more elaborate set of prerequisites than just Atheistic or Religious premises. your years of studying anywhere of higher education in the field of philosophy such as you claimed should have ingrained that in you. Jodie is correct, what you presented is and remains a false premise, regardless of your protests to the contrary.

 

3 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Your point about Muslims would seem to be true a least anecdotally  but it hasn't shown up in surveys or testing as yet.

Now you are relying your reality on the availability of surveys ?

3 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

MAybe we still see them as honest god fearing people despite a propensity to violence and terrorism

For example many westerners would trust a muslim woman, dressed in a hijab,  not to shop steal, more than they would  a western woman in revealing clothes,  even though the former would have more chance of concealing stolen items. 

YOur point here being you have no studies or surveys that says anything one way or the other ?

What's the difference between the women besides their fashion choices , one is more religious than the other ?

~

[+joc]

 

Quote

 

  1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

One might assume that this has something to do with belief in God or gods — perhaps religious people are more trustworthy because they believe they will be punished for immoral behavior, or maybe nonreligious people threaten the values that many people hold.”

 

If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is that you cannot really trust anyone...only in degrees.  Pedophiles hide behind Pastoral Robes and Teaching Certificates...Men of the church hide affairs...as well as women of the church...High Moral Politicians hide behind powerful committees ...morality is a myth...at the end of the day, we are all human, and at the end of the day, humans cannot be trusted.