Sometimes I Think God Is Just Something We Think About In Our Heads.

God = Good
Devil = Evil

I believe God is made up by people not our creator
This is Good because God = Good and the Devil = Evil.

The Golden Rule exists basically in all religions all made up by people.
The Golden Rule is vital and in my opinion should be the way of life.

Unfortunately the Golden Rule has been lost by some and bloodshed and violation arises as we see in the news and on the Internet daily.

Good hopefully will always defeat Evil but it is tested each and every day.

However we achieve Good be it in a House of Worship or in reading i.e. The Bible is proper and good.
If one believes God exists and is our Creator as long as this achieves Good then all is fine.
It is when Evil is brought into the equation that the balance of life and The Golden Rule is tested.

God will not save you - God will not save us --- if God truly existed then we would not be a we are today in this World.
Did God just create us and allow us to tend to ourselves? I can not believe this to be true because He would have turned His back on us.

Good = God
Devil = Evil

Treat others as you want others to treat you --- make God/Good Rule our World.

 

I have no problem with what anyone wants to believe, either, until they use it like you said to destroy or hurt others....stand in others way, keep others back, intentionally maliciously interfere....ect.

Desmond Morris made much sense to me about the god phenomenon in his writings. He said it is man's made up response to the ever present thought of death..In the rest of the animal kingdom, as far as we know, they only have fright flight, fight response when there is imminent danger of something threatening their lives, so it is ONLY then.
Man is aware of death all of the time, so god his is way to fight, all of the time.

That is a simple summary of what Desmond said. He goes into much further detail .

 

I don't like it when that happens either but does that happen because of a sense of self or because of their belief in God (, or something else, or a mix of all of those things )? And I still don't see why the sense of a self is illusionary. I like to add the same thing you guys added: I don't mind if people think/believe it is false or imaginary. But to me it is evidently there.

Another thought: just because we can invent it ourselves with our minds makes it inevitably an illusion? Technically it does make it imagined, yes because we imagined an idea and acted upon that idea, bringing it into realisation. But fake, false, illusionary or non existent? Why? Does the same count for morals or principles? Just thinking out loud here.

 

As much as we have invented the concept of God, the universe has implanted the idea in our heads. Conditions allow for the possibility, and conditions cannot conceivably be such that they will not allow for the possibility. Any time there is an intelligent being capable of creating something where there was nothing before, the idea of a universal creator will occur. It doesn't matter if the thinker is mortal or immortal, the universe will plant the suggestion in its head.

That isn't to say that the suggestion is correct, as the universe suggests many scenarios that are not based in any known reality.

But, since it is possible that a God exists, it is possible that everything that is not true can be known to be false. But God cannot possibly know its own existence to be false. So that is one thing God has in common with truths, for whatever that's worth.

 

Well, the Flying Spaghetti monster isn't noted for its rational qualities. And anyhow, what I'm saying is that to theologian Paul Tillich and me, the object of ultimate meaning is a person's god. It may be a false god. like money, sex, drugs, rockn'roll. The meaning derived from it may be ultimately unsatisfying. But if it is what you devote your life to, or use as your ultimate measure of value, or let it rule your life, it's your god. So from what you say, it sounds like yours is reason and logic. Yes, if you value the Flying Spaghetti Monster above everything else (I doubt that anyone does) then it's your god. As Tillich says, "Let your ultimates be ultimate!"

 

When I first entered this monastery, I took a vow of poverty, and a vow to not wake up the Abbot ( all of us here are spiritual friends with no one person telling us what to do) so the Abbot is a symbol that is asleep in the mountains that surround this place. I was instructed in meditation, a process where you find a comfortable place and sit. Then you begin to quite the mind and body. After months of meditating I could sit and within minutes I had no thoughts and my body was completely relaxed. Then the next step was to remain in that "empty" place when going about your business and interacting with other monks. In that stillness there are no concepts that arise. Today I can go into that state of being at will. I have begun to know this state as Nirvana, but I also have all the same thoughts and feelings I used to before coming here. So I accept them as part of being human and do not fight to suppress what is produced by my body and mind, I just experience them, and liken them to clouds in the sky that form and then dissipate. It works for me, but I do not expect others to agree with this, and I certainly have no intention of preaching this life style. I realize that living in the world day to day is loaded with concepts, ideas, and activities that produce a sense of self. One must survive out there, and having a healthy ego is required. That is not the case when you have left the outside world, and devoted yourself to living without having beliefs in the thoughts and feelings that come and go. I just live spontaneously now, and don't question what is being produced within me. Being on this forum is a way to express that spontaneity. I do not believe or disbelieve that which I write. It is just staying in the "now" without interruption.

 

Opened heart...but ya gotta wear that armour!

 

LOL

 

Yep, its the biggest pie-in-the-face academia has ever faced and within twenty years at the outside computers should be powerful enough to reveal the mathematical foundations of a theory of everything that will explain how it all works. It means the ancient Chinese blessing and curse applies of, "May you live in interesting times" because, whatever the explanation turns out to be, its nothing like what the mainstream assumes. The suspense is killing me because the buildup to this joke has taken forever!

 

LOL, again, what the hell is that sentence supposed to actually mean beyond nonsensical word salad.

the brain is a physical organ and isn't routinely substituted for mind....LOL
could you do me a favor and post a picture of you pointing at your "mind"?
I can cut open a skull and look at, touch, taste and smell a brain, can you do that with a mind?
there is no "substitution between brain and mind", one is a common physical organ and the other is ???????

 

A brain without a mind and a mind without a brain is the story of somewhere over the rainbow and the wizard of Oz reminding us all like Pinocchio to be true. That's the utter gibberish is pretending your mind has no physical existence. With the right stimulation modern science can make your cream your jeans or kill little fury animals. Likewise, you can exercise your mind and grow new neurons because the two can even substitute for one another for simple routine tasks whenever it one of them is screwing up or it just happens to be more efficient.

 

where is the mind physically located?

and don't be fooled by wordplay, mind and brain are not synonymous and even though we may use the colloquial turn of phrase "exercising our mind" what is in actuality happening is we are exercising the physical neurons, pathways and synapses, muscles, etc. that are involved in that particular activity of "exercising our mind", whether it be doing a crossword puzzle or studying the esoteric ramifications of quantum theory, for all intents and purposes it is still a measurable physical event taking place in our physical beings.

How that physicality is translated into conscious experience is still pretty much the realm of mystery.

 

I simply stated I value logic and reason, I think both of you are escalating the emphasis of my statement, which may in part be why it's difficult for me to understand.

Okiefreak, what you and presumably Tillich are saying sound to me like vain attempts to inject God into various things, that it doesn't necessarily need to be apart of. That may be unfair as I haven't read Tillich nor is this the format where you could probably fully elucidate your ideas but I will say those things you list as "false gods" at least surely have an actual existence, which is more than can be said for certain than the God(s) of the Religious.

I don't worship logic and reason, I value it because the direct utilization of it is evident...

 

What was the photo pointing out??

 

Logical structures are in place used to make that photo happen and for you to make this post.

 

Not as cool as an answer I was hoping for.

 

The Raiders Lost

 

As well as the idea of no god? Also when you say the universe has implanted "the idea of god" into our heads, what is this idea, in some detail? Like, just a general vibe about some powerful being who created the universe? Or a word salad like "the ultimate meaning"?

What is your reasoning or evidence for this? If you can imagine a situation where there is an entity which breaks all known rules of logic and nature, is it not trivial to imagine a universe where the rules are such that such a being is not able to exist?

Citation needed

The second half of your sentence does not appear related or connected to the first half; please clarify this syllogism. Going from an ontological statement to an epistemological statement definitely requires some form of connective tissue.

The same applies to a Bonobo. A bonobo cannot know it's own existence to be false; you merely point at a linguistic impasse. Something that exists cannot "know" that it doesn't exist (it can only erroneously believe it at best). What do you mean that this is something in common with "truths"? And what exactly IS all this worth?

 

I was hoping that the photo would have been from a person who invented something or said something that the poster disagrees with or doesn't like and that there would be IRONY!

 

This might be why this topic will always get debated. We want to know the exact answer but the answer is not exact. It is worth the world to some person and it's worth nothing to another. Does the conviction of the latter diminish the worth for the first person and the other way around? If not, what kind of answer regarding worth do you really expect.

Some people conclude God is inevitably bogus because how It gets perceived is obviously subjective. No biggie on itself