What evidence is there of god's existence? (Rules inside).

I’ll kick this off myself.

The constants of the universe are so amazingly well balanced. If any of them were to change by a tiny amount, matter could not exist in any coherent way. Something like this is so unlikely to exist at random so it is evidence of some intelligence designing things. (Note:This is not the current ID theory but a general idea of intelligence creating the universe).

@roundsquare The fundamental constants probably aren’t fundamental. The mass of an electron was once thought to be fundamental, but various theories (most notably string theory) now attempt to derive this value from other known factors. A complete Theory of Everything (TOE) would likely rest upon one fundamental fact from which all else could be derived, including these constants that are apparently ‘fine-tuned’. It is far too early into the research of these quantities to suppose a god made them so.

@roundsquare also who is to say this is the first time a big bang event or things leading up to them happened. Who is to say something like this didnt happen a million times over and failed until the right random events lined up?

Not since my teenage years have I seen any evidence that God exists. That ended when my hormones settled down a little.

@roundsquare

The anthropic principle isn’t a very good argument for the existence of a god.

For one- of course the constants we see are favorable for life as we know it, because we are here. So we are praising in retrospect.

Evidence for or against a creator is one of those things I just can’t help but read about. I have read a great deal pro and con, and my conclusion is that so far, neither side has produced anything I would call scientifically acceptable evidence. I utterly reject the Agnostic claim that God could not be proven. Most obviously, if there were a God powerful enough to create the entire universe, and intelligent enough to conceive and put in place all the intricate laws needed to keep it in perfect balance for 13.73 billion years, that God would be perfectly capable of revealing that they exist.

The strongest evidence against there being a god seems the very fact that no god has ever conclusively revealed themselves to exist.

And then there is the fact that cause seems to predictably follow effect. When we drop an apple from the top of a high structure, we do not have to guess about which way it will go. It will fall toward Earth, and at a precisely predictable rate. If there were a god intervening in day-to-day affairs, sometimes, a cause would produce a completely unexpected effect. We’d drop the apple, but instead of falling and hitting the holy man in the head, it would fly upward out of our hands and hit us to punish us for our intended sin.

This just it. Evidence og God’s Existence found.

Which god would be proven by the constants of the universe, even if the counterarguments didn’t apply?

Also, in addition to everything everyone brought up, the universe is not finely tuned to support life. Not remotely. 99.9999% of the matter in the universe is plasma.

We have not been able to detect life anywhere except on Earth. As far as we know, life (as we know it) can only emerge on rocky planets that happen to be a just-so distance from their suns and have a certain amount of liquid water at a certain temperature and density, along with a bunch of other unlikely factors. This describes an infinitesmal fraction of the total volume of our “finely tuned” universe full of countless billions of stars and planets, and quote possibly only describes Earth.

And here on Earth, life was a pretty freak accident, considering there’s nothing like it elsewhere in the solar system. Also, almost every type of living thing that ever existed has gone extinct.

The God Grandiose (or Imogene) exists because he says he does. Anybody who says he doesn’t just doesn’t have the correct amount of faith and is therefore wrong. It is clear that Grandiose exists, just consult your faith and you will feel it. And if most of the people in my country says that Grandiose exists, then he must exist, because they say he exists and everybody else is wrong. That is why Grandiose, the God, exists. He exists just because. Exept that if you live in a different region of the world, there is a totally different God, he is called Inferiorius (or Ron). He’s darker and meaner than Grandiose. He doesn’t make you disbelieve in other Gods or hate gays, he just has a lot more parties for different holidays. The food is usually better too.

Finely balanced constants within the structure of the Universe, as has already been pointed out, are ‘constant’ up until the point we discover some further branch of science which shakes the foundations of everything previous. As has also been mentioned – so what? The problem with ID is that all it proves is Intelligence, not God. We are intelligent, supposedly, and therefore should be able to grasp the concept that just because there is someone Intelligent enough to create the Universe, doesn’t make him/her God. In fact God, the concept itself, can only be defined in terms of a context.

Personally I’m still defining that context in the search for the true definition of God, but in the meantime he still exists, and my proof? Irony. God has a wicked sense of humour, in fact almost by definition the best sense of humour, and I get the impression he takes full advantage of the humour inherent in these kind of discussions. Therefore God exists because we ask the question, and I know that it’s true because that makes me laugh too. Thanks God.

Coarse tuned constants?

It was said that God has not made himself known. He has made himself known and has visited this Earth many times.

I just ran across this today. It gives some insight into why it’s so common for humans to assign intelligent causes to natural phenomena. I suspect it explains why mankind in every culture has invented some god or gods to bring seeming order to a world where shit happens.

@all Yes, finely tuned constants is a horrible argument for all the reasons pointed out and probably many more. I was just trying to get started with something that looks like evidence. Does anyone have other pieces of evidence?

@Qingu No god in particular.

@roundsquare It is only common sense that our partricular life would have developed and evolved in an environment finely tuned for its existence. How could it possibly be otherwise. It is also entirely possible that there is a life form thsat thrives within the inferno of the hottest known star, and could only have evolved there. To them, our environment would not be finely tuned but a drastically hostile, frigid environment nearing absolute zero, and life being here would be so completely incomprehensible to them that they would never even bother to look here.

@ETpro

Did you ever read Dragon’s Egg? That’s basically the storyline.

@crisw No, I have somehow missed that one. I made up the same story line on my own. I did read More Than a Theory by Dr. Hugh Ross. In it he parades out the “incredibly finely tuned” argument, and all through it I wanted to scream through the books pages to him, “But what would you expect our environment to be?” That’s how I came up with the fire people living in the core of a blue star at a nice, balmy 30,000 degrees Kelvin.

@roundsquare There’s not many religious people on here, so you may have some trouble getting other arguments ‘for’ religion.

@FireMadeFlesh There seem to be a decent crop of Fluther theists and their apologists in this thread. I wonder if the word “evidence” scared them off from this one.

@ETpro

Probably. Very few of them seem to want to talk facts rather than “belief” or “faith”- or perhaps they would rather just complain that atheists are “intolerant” for asking for that pesky evidence…

@roundsquare

Here’s a really great list – and an unusual one- of the arguments for God and why they fail. The book from which these are taken is itself a fascinating read.

All one has to do is open your eyes, mind and soul. There is plenty available for mankind to make up his mind. Most on this site use science to find their answers but there is so much more than science. Just open your hearts, minds, eyes and soul it is there for you all.

What evidence is there for the explanation of the explanation of everything natural?

At some point the ultimate explanation must be self referential to handle infinite regress.

So to answer your question: There is no scientific evidence of god’s existence.

The fine-tuned universe might be considered a hint, but there’s no evidence that a multiverse getting around the problem doesn’t exist. Yet even a multiverse with trillions or even an infinite number of universes will eventually lead to the problem of the ultimate explanation.

@ETpro Maybe. The vast majority of theists cite reasons that do not come from science, and I think most people think of ‘evidence’ only in a scientific context.

@mattbrowne Fair enough, but why call this ultimate explanation ‘God’?

@mattbrowne Infinite regress may indeed be the answer. The only truth we can honestly state is that everything we know has a beginning, and a cause. Explaining the beginning of the Universe by saying God did it only transfers the question. If everything must have a beginning and a cause, who caused god and when did He begin? Most theists dodge this question by proclaiming GOd outside temporal existence, eternal and infinite. Perhaps that’s so. But it could equally be that the Universe in some form or another is eternal and infinite. So long as we posit that everything must have a beginning and a cause, there is no room for ANY uncaused cause. And so the supposition that everything must have a beginning and a cause is obviously a false assumption.

@FireMadeFlesh – If other people prefer the term ‘ultimate explanation’ I’m fine with that.

@ETpro – Both the concept of an uncreated eternal creator and a self referential ultimate eternal natural explanation get around the problem of beginning and uncaused cause, but both are outside the realm of scientific method and empirical evidence, so we can’t expect any final answers from science.

As long as theists are tolerant and do not cause any harm to other people why not live with the fact that they believe in something they call God (outside of nature), while atheists call this self referential ultimate explanation (inside of nature). It was theist scientists who discovered the principals of genetics or the big bang for example. Educated theism does not lead to ignorance.

An uncreated eternal creator makes no logical sense since the act of “creation” necessarily takes place within time. In order to “create” something, there must be a point in time when it doesn’t exist, followed by a point in time when it does. This simply does not apply to our understanding of the universe. (or multiverse, for you many-worlds QM adherents, or what have you)

The further we go down the rabbit hole here the less and less the thing at the end—if there is something there—looks like a deity of any sort. Quantum fluctuation may be the answer; my cat has more to do with the traditional conception of the word “god” than quantum fluctuation.

It is so very simple it goes beyond those trying to totally interpret everything about life. Just open your heart, mind and spirit. All we are and all we came from is totally there for us all to see and KNOW… Just open your eyes. ROFL Why do so many make it so difficult.

@mattbrowne I am not sure that the question is outside science—- just sure that it’s far beyond what science has learned to date.

Now, I have known you for quite some time and known that you are a Christian. Have I ever called you ignorant? I can’t recall coming anywhere close to that. I greatly admire your intelligence. My problem with theism is that it requires accepting as truth things you cannot possibly have evidence to support. That seems to be a slippery slope in human thought. It is how our brains are wired by evolution to work. It served us well when we lived in caves and survived as small tribes of hunter gatherers, but at our current level of technological sophistication, faith-based thinking can get us into a world of trouble. That is why I challenge people’s religious beliefs, not because I think they are stupid. They may be much brighter than me. They may be tolerant. But they teach letting myth and superstition rule over evidence. This I find to be a problem.

@Qingu – I was using the term creator because it’s so common. If nature was and is eternal a different term would indeed be better:

Both the concept of an eternal divine entity (outside of nature) and a self referential ultimate eternal natural explanation (inside of nature) get around the problem of beginning and uncaused cause, but both are outside the realm of scientific method and empirical evidence, so we can’t expect any final answers from science.

As for quantum fluctuations causing the big bang, or even numerous other universes, what explains quantum fluctuations? What explains the explanation of quantum fluctuations?

@ETpro – The ultimate explanation must contain an element outside of science as well, because it must make a statement about the validity of science itself. You cannot use scientific method to prove scientific method. A simple example is the contradiction in the sentence “Science can explain everything” which we can easily deduce by using first and second-order logic.

No, my friend, you never called me ignorant.

When educated theists talk about truth, they don’t mean first-order logic truth. You might call it a spiritual truth, which a belief. Nothing else. A belief is not a fact. In fact, a belief can be wrong.

I share your view that the belief in a higher power helped stone age humans survive. There’s a lot of neurobiological research going on. Yes, at our current level of technological sophistication, faith-based thinking can get us into a world of trouble. I couldn’t agree more. There is no war on science in Europe. It’s a US phenomenon. We should be very worried. And at some point it might spread to Europe as well. We need to make sure it doesn’t. My wife is a biology teacher. She also plays the organ in church. There’s not a single school in Germany that teaches creationism. Zero. It would be illegal. My wife teaches evolution. It’s no big deal over here. I wonder what went wrong in the US. Why the situation is so different where you guys live. I never met a creationist in America in person. We went to graduate school in Lawrence, KS. Everything was very liberal. Very scientific. We need to keep it that way. If people don’t want to follow atheism, they should follow educated theism. Like Mendel did. Like Lemaître did. Both were priests. Both were scientists.

You all try and give some explanation of things why can’t you see the truth…

@mattbrowne I say that we may some day know the origin question’s answer because it may not require science to know it. If there is a creator, that deity would certainly have the ability to reveal knowledge of herself. If the Universe itself is eternal and planned itself, then coming to know it may reveal its ultimate truth to us.

@Summum What truth would that be?

@ETpro – That may be so, but how can we be certain? Absolutely certain? About some absolute truth? Like there’s nothing beyond nature. We need a brain to make a judgment about certainty and there are limitations of our brains. Will a super brain help? I think that’s just pushing the limitations a bit. Anyway, I enjoy these philosophical musings.

@mattbrowne That’s an old philosophical argument that we know leads nowhere. How can we be certain of anything? The best devised scientific evidence on earth my be a figment of your imagination.

While I can’t prove that the traffic in the Boston streets even exists or that I am real, I choose to trust reality enough that I don’t deliberately step into the street and test its truth.

If your parents seem sufficiently real to you that you believe they exist, then I would think some other intelligent being could reveal themselves to you in sufficiently convincing fashion that you would accept their existence as well.

@mattbrowne, if you drill down deep enough to any system, you won’t find explanations, you’ll find axioms. Or you’ll find, inevitably, inconsistencies and things that cannot be proven within the system, as Gödel proved.

My view of the universe and explanations thereof is that it’s all Russian nesting dolls. Our macroscopic experience of the universe, Newtonian mechanics, relativity, etc, emerge from more fundamental rules concerning quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. These rules, in turn, emerge from the even more fundamental world of mathematics and statistics. And these, in turn, emerge out of set theory and logic. But outside of logic is just madness; a world that we cannot ever understand because it is completely outside of our own, in the same way that a tree can’t survive floating in outer space.

Or: maybe we can understand it someday. Maybe everything in the universe or the multiverse can be described by a simple equation that is just iterated over and over again so that various fractal levels of complexity emerge. We might even figure out what this equation is.

But if we did, we still wouldn’t be able to understand everything in the universe or even close to it. We understand, almost completely, all of the relevant physical processes that involve the quarks and electrons that make up an ant’s body. But we wouldn’t try to understand an ant, or a colony of ants, by whipping out Feymann diagrams of the particles in an ant’s body. An ant may reduce to particles, but it’s more useful to look at an ant on the “level” of biology, or even the slightly lower level of “chemistry” that emerges out of the underlying particle physics.

That’s the wonder of complexity: hugely complex and wondrous things can emerge naturally and chaotically from very simple underlying processes, creating “levels” like zooming out of a fractal. Maybe the universe is like that, or maybe it isn’t. In either case, the answer to this question and the implications of this question really shouldn’t be said to have anything to do with gods.

I wasn’t talking about a matrix-like universe, @ETpro. And I think we should not believe in things that contradict scientific evidence. I don’t. All of you are real to me. I was talking about ultimate explanations. If we think about our universe or the multiverse as an eternal computer program, the two ultimate explanations could be seen as either a divine author of this program or the program’s capability to write itself. What I was trying to say was that scientific method (which is a human creation) or human understanding in general (based on our brains’ capabilities) cannot prove that the second explanation is true, even if this were actually the case.

Treating these two ultimate explanations as axioms doesn’t change the situation in my opinion. Some people assert God as an axiom from which all natural laws can be deduced (including the ones of potentially different universes), others assert a self-explanatory super law (simple equation or “madness” outside of logic) from which all natural laws can be deduced (including the ones of potential different universes) and there’s a series of deductions (which can also be interpreted as emergence) starting with more fundamental laws as outlined by @Qingu.

Why this rejection of the first “axiom” approach? Why shouldn’t the answer to this ultimate question and the implications of it not have anything to do with gods?

My explanation is this: negative connotations. The word god or gods triggers myriads of bad memories in some people: superstitious religious zealots hating gay people, creationists trying to sabotage science, written divine requests to commit genocide and so forth, popes fighting against the use of condoms, terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers.

So in my opinion there’s an emotional factor too. It’s not just about logic and reason. Some neuroscientists argue that feeling certain, feeling that we know something, is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. An increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. In other words, the feeling of knowing happens to us. We cannot make it happen.

@mattbrowne And my point is that we know the limitations of the human brain today, but we do not know the future. If you had asked a caveman if humans would ever walk on the moon, or if you took the time to explain to him in hos own terms what light years are, and then asked him what lies 28 billion light years away from Earth; he would have “known” you were either crazy or talking about things that are completely unknowable. But we do know those things today, just as solidly as we know there are distant human beings behind each of our avatars here on Fluther.

Not knowing the future, we have no idea how long humanity will survive, how it will evolve, what tools of inquiry it may develop, and therefore what it will ultimately know.

I know you are well versed in science. Look back at the great men of the scientific past who have issued bold prognostications about what is impossible. It is almost impossible to find a single one who was right. And the few who stated impossibilities that have yet to fall will likely also fail the test of time if humanity lasts long enough. In other words, their pronouncement of what is impossible are likely wrong at this moment. Their error just hasn’t been exposed yet.

@ETpro – Even a super brain (technological singularity) will have limitations. Even a super brain can’t beat Gödel for example.

@mattbrowne, I’m not opposed to using the word “god” because of negative connotation; I’m opposed on the basis of semantic clarity.

The word “god” needs to mean something for the word to have any functional meaning. If a mindless, non-personal law or absence of non-logic can be defined as “god,” then we are understanding the word so broadly that it becomes difficult to communicate.

@mattbrowne Taking up on @Qingu‘s point, one of my suppositions in my proof of possibility is that someday God the omnipotent, omniscient creator may choose to reveal their presence to us. If you are saying that even then, our minds would be insufficient to total understanding, then I would like to know what sort of God it is you believe in. And further, how do you know that?

You say you are a theist, but you are expressing the convictions of an agnostic.

I think almost every educated theist is an agnostic scientifically speaking. The same applies to the majority of atheists, because they don’t see the nonexistence of a deity as a fact. So you and I we are both agnostics in a scientific context. The rest are beliefs. Divine authorship of the universe, or the program capable of writing itself beyond the realm of scientific method.

One way to see: theism = deism + purpose and meaning and rituals

Revelation has a symbolic meaning. I love cosmology and astrophysics. So to me, an exploding star is a wonderful revelation as well. Or take carbon chemistry. Or altruism as a evolutionary feature. Or Jesus Christ reminding us not to turn into beasts. All are great symbols for divine authorship. Conservative Christians see things differently. They picture a human-like God sitting in heaven and watching his creation. From time to time, God tells himself, oh, it’s time to get involved. He talks to angels and sends them on their way. But to me angels are symbols, mythical beings, representing ideas, representing human psychology. I guess the conservative God was also watching McCain’s campaign and he intervened telling McCain to pick Sarah Palin as his vice president candidate. The conservative God is intervening all the time, even fiddling with thermometers so global warming is actually a hoax. And when people go to sin city, he does send tsunamis to teach us a lesson.

Well, frankly I have not experienced a day when our ingenious natural laws have been modified or suspended. We can ask God for strength, but then it’s up to us what we do.

The “God” of this world would be a being that is on a higher plane of existence but not in control of the Universal laws and in fact is under the laws control as well. Universal law has always existed and the worlds govern themselves by those laws.

Take two different nations say in a war with each other. They both believe in God and therefore pray for their country to defeat the enemy and win the war. Is God going to come down and interfere with that war and if so who is he going to help or not help? When 2 people get cancer and prayers are in effect for both. One dies the other lives does that mean God helped one and let the other die? There is a car crash and little damage is done but someone in one of the cars dies did God take that person? A different crash but this car is mangled and the person in the car walks away. Did God step in and save him? Your answer is the world is governed by Universal and Natural Law. God does exist but not in the way many think he does and his purpose is not what many think it is. There are many higher beings and we are to become one ourselves when we evolve to that degree.

@Summum – So what exactly is the term of your belief system?

@mattbrowne

After work, and the normal greetings to wife and children, I would go down to the den to relax for a few minutes before dinner. Sitting on the carpeted floor with my back against the wall, I would close my eyes and just rest. There was no noise, just total silence, complete calm. It was a wonderful way to relax from a hectic day. After several months of this form of relaxation, I began to notice a “ringing” in my ears. The more I listened to it, the more intense the ringing became.

Months passed, and as often as possible I would practice my “relaxation” in the den after work, listening to this sound that had now moved to the center of my mind. One afternoon after calling upon clients all day I sat down on the front room sofa, and began to practice my relaxation. I closed my eyes, turning my attention away from all outside noise and towards the sound within my mind. It became very intense. Suddenly, I was totally engulfed by the sound, every cell of my body vibrating. It seemed as if the sound was coming from both outside and inside of me simultaneously. It was completely encompassing.

Instantly, I opened my eyes and found myself standing next to an enormous pyramid. I was neither frightened nor concerned. An unusual calm and peace permeated my entire being. I was in a totally aware state of consciousness. There were no questions in my mind, such as, “Why am I standing next to this huge pyramid?” I had heard about pyramids from my studies of world history in school, but I knew little about them.

I was fascinated by this pyramid. I began walking around it, to what I perceived to be the north side. It appeared to be about one half mile long at the base and made of a material similar to graphite. Its surface was smooth, and I did not notice any distinguishing markings or etchings, nor did I see any entranceways. Grass covered the ground and it was as perfectly manicured as a golf green. The sky was bright but there was no sun. Stars filled the heavens. There was no sound or movement of any kind. It felt as if everything was perfect, and my being there was part of this perfect state.

As I arrived at what I believed to be the north side of the pyramid, I saw another structure. This second structure had a round, convex shape, like a flattened ball. It also was very large, appearing to be about one hundred yards in diameter. It seemed to be constructed of the same material as the pyramid. Its surface was smooth with no markings or visible entrance ways. I walked right up to the structure, feeling drawn towards it. I felt compelled to walk through its wall, and I did.

At this point I became intensely interested in my body for it amazed me to be able to walk through a wall that was at least three feet thick. I felt my hands and my arms. I could feel my body. It was real and I was alive. I was conscious. I breathed. My heart was beating. Physically nothing had changed, and yet I had just walked through the wall—unbelievable! The material of the wall seemed to just flow around my body. I could feel the ground, but it was as if I was “melting” through the wall.

Passing through the wall, I found myself in a large room resonant with light radiating from the air. The walls, floor, and ceiling looked as if they were made of very thick glass. Ahead of me, about thirty feet away, stood a group of individuals. They looked like humans, yet they were different. Both male and female individuals were there. Their appearance was striking! They were so beautiful, so elegant, that I could not take my eyes off of them. Their facial features and bodies were so perfectly formed, it seemed as if they were divine in their physical appearance. I had never seen such extremely attractive people before. As I started to wonder about them, a concept came into my mind which answered all my questions. They established a high level telepathic link with my mind, and instantaneously I understood them. I knew of their origin, their work, and their purpose.
They guided me across the room and directed my attention to an area on the floor. Out of the floor rose an elliptical glass-like shaft approximately eighteen by ten inches in size. I watched it rise from the floor and looked into it. Concepts started streaming through my mind. It seemed as if I had been standing there for a lifetime, for several lifetimes, so penetrating were these concepts flowing into my mind. I subsequently learned that the glass-like shaft was a form of crystal, and that as I looked down into it, there was another crystal shaft protruding from the ceiling towards the back of my head. I am reminded that recorded history makes mention of communication taking place through the use of crystals. Within religious books such as The Bible, The Torah, and The Bhagavad Gita are found passages describing the use of crystals in communication. Perhaps the crystals I encountered can be considered a contemporary Urim and Thummim (see Exodus ch. 28 vs. 30).

After sorting out some of the concepts which were now in my mind, I came to realize that for the human being to understand these concepts in such a short term, it is necessary to reorganize the human thinking processes. The mind must be organized rather than in a state of confusion. I have since concluded that with the facility of the crystals which were tuned to the memory (chemical) storage within my brain, the concepts were literally impressed upon me by these magnificent individuals.

I was never hesitant, nor did I fear or regret anything they did to me. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It is difficult for me to explain how wonderful this experience was. There are no words to express the love and devotion I now have for these divine Beings and their work. In their presence, I feel overwhelmed. I feel as if I am in the “seventh heaven.” I’m in the safest place one could ever imagine. I cannot think of a greater gift than what they gave me.

At this point, it is important to stress that I was at all times in control of my body and its functions. At no time was my body ever entered by another entity or spirit. I was always conscious while the concepts were being given to me. There was no entity speaking through me. With the current public awareness of “channeling,” a process wherein earthbound, disembodied entities use the bodies of embodied entities to speak through, it is important to understand that this is not what happened to me. The concepts were given to me, and I worked to gain an understanding of them on my own. I am not the only one to recieve this special gift but I have and did experience it.

@mattbrowne, I see “agnosticism” as an inescapable position to any logical system. Any logical system relies on postulates, which by definition might not be true.

I really think agnosticism is a red herring to the actual debate between theism and atheism. I mean, I’m technically “agnostic” that my chair is going to remain solid when I go to sit in it (according to QM there is a slight chance that the atoms in my body will tunnel through it); but of course I still “believe” that it will remain solid, and I “don’t believe” it will become insubstantial.

@Summum, I hope the reason you’re copy and pasting from this website is because you’re actually Amen Ra.

I know Amen Ra personally and helped with his mumification he passed a few years ago and yes I have been with him for years now and helped set up the pyramid in SLC.

@Qingu I did experience things with him and have his permission to use his web site and his words. But only for the open minded.

LOL, you got permission from the leader of the Summum cult to pass off his personal magic experience as your own, word-for-word?

@Qingu Most definitions I find say that a fundamental of agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God cannot be known. I say that in the same sense I know my wife exists, I should be able to know God exists should s/he choose to open my eyes. It seems to me that claiming we can absolutely know what we can not know is as absurd as claiming we know things we do not.

@Summum – So your belief system is this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum ?

I wasn’t aware of it. I need to print the article.

@Qingu – I’m very much involved in actual debate between theism and atheism, right? I was just offering some clarification about @ETpro‘s post.

@Qingu It was my own as well because I experienced it with him as have others. I still speak with him and communicate with him.

@mattbrowne No actually Summum is not all of my belief system it is a small fraction of it. The experiences from there have grown leaps and bounds and other beings are involved. This Earth is about to change and NOTHING anyone can do will change that.

@Summum, you can give up the act; I doubt anyone here still believes you (if they ever did).

I don’t believe in God as something separate from the Universe. If there is a God it is something that is contained within everything else. What do we know for certain? We know that something exists rather than nothing. The nature of this something is not clear. It is not quite matter, not quite energy and not quite spirit. It is without dimension or duration. We can say that it just is, like God. We can say that when we look for God we find something rather than nothing but we cannot say what it is we have found.

@Qingu

Right it’s an act because you say so. Just wait and I promise you, you will know what I am talking about as will all mankind. The question has come up before about an absolute. What I am telling you is an absolute and in time you will know. Just open your mind and experience, open your eyes and see, open your heart and feel and open your soul and know. Good Luck to you

Yeah… see, what I’m curious about at this point is whether or not you’re just trolling. The Dr. Manhatten avatar was what initially sent up warning bells.

But I suppose a gentleman (troll) never tells. And, of course, real cultists tend to be indistinguishable from parodies thereof. If it is the latter, though, it would be nice if you let us all in at this point.

@Qingu

There is something wrong with using an avatar? Why? I am who I am and what I am with no excuses. But just because my experiences and knowledge are different than your own doesn’t give you the upper hand and knowledge beyond what I have. You are the judge and jury it seems for anything that doesn’t fit your personal knowledge and experience. That is why I ask you to open your mind and allow for all possibility. They laughed at those that first discovered the world was not flat.

Here is a place for anyone to try and find the answers that are available to all mankind. Look up the Akashic records and seek them.

A theosophical term referring to a universal filing system which records every occurring thought, word, and action. The records are impressed on a subtle substance called akasha (or Soniferous Ether). In Hindu mysticism this akasha is thought to be the primary principle of nature from which the other four natural principles, fire, air, earth, and water, are created. These five principles also represent the five senses of the human being.

Some indicate the akashic records are similar to a Cosmic or collective consciousness. The records have been referred to by different names including the Cosmic Mind, the Universal Mind, the collective unconscious, or the collective subconscious. Others think the akashic records make clairvoyance and psychic perception possible.

It is believed by some that the events recorded upon that akasha can be ascertained or read in certain states of consciousness. Such states of consciousness can be induced by certain stages of sleep, weakness, illness, drugs, and meditation so not only mystics but ordinary people can and do perceive the akashic records. Some mystics claim to be able to reanimate their contents like they were turning on a celestial television set. Yogis also believe that these records can be perceived in certain psychic states.

Certain persons in subconscious states do read the akashic records. An explanation for this phenomena is that the akashic records are the macrocosm of the individual subconscious mind. Both function similarly, they possess thoughts which are never forgotten. The collective subconscious gathers all thoughts from each subconscious mind which can be read by other subconscious minds.

An example of one who many claimed successfully read the akashic records is the late American mystic Edgar Cayce. Cayce did his readings in a sleep state or trance. Cayce’s method was described by Dr. Wesley H. Ketchum who for several years used Cayce as an adjunct for his medical practice. “Cayce’s subconscious…is in direct communication with all other subconscious minds, and is capable of interpreting through his objective mind and imparting impressions received to other objective minds, gathering in this way all knowledge possessed by endless millions of other subconscious minds.” Apparently Cayce was interpreting the collective subconscious mind long before the psychiatrist C.J. Jung postulated his concept of the collective unconscious. A.G.H.

http://www.byregion.net/articles-healers/Akashic_Cells.html

This is ONE way of seeking and finding. There are so many ways and how one does it doesn’t matter but doing it is very important for you evolution. Karmapa Reiki is also a term to look up.