Is there an answer?

[bluekelebek]

I wasn't raised religious, and tbh I dont know what/if I do believe in.. but is there an answer to - if there is a God, why is there so much suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad people seem to get on with life with no repercussions, regardless of thei actions?

@XDownwiththissortofthingX so you recount floating out of your body and looking down on what was happening yet think the cause is purely physical. Ok that sounds absurd to me! Denial is a term I would definitely use for you.

I like to think it was real what I saw but I’ve learned it could have been DMT flooding my brain

No, I think I experienced something akin to a dream. A physiological episode that occurred entirely inside my brain.

At no point was my "conciousness", body, or any other part of me actually floating around the room. That would be patently absurd, since there were other people present and none of them witnessed anything.

You can call it "denial", I'd say living in reality.

The idea that I actually "floated" out of my body is ridiculous.

But dreams might equally be an access to another world/dimension.

But dreams might equally be an access to another world/dimension.

'Equally'? No. Dream states can be studied. There's no evidence for them being anything other than a natural phenomenon.

Absolutely. About 99% of the 'We should all be open-minded' / 'You can't disprove it' / 'Science will one day find that ghosts/psychic abilities/timeslips are real!' and the quoters of 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy' posts are made by people whose ideas about 'open-mindedness' are based on lack of actual knowledge, and a complete inability to distinguish credible sources from 'something someone said on Youtube'.

You see it’s all down to experience and perspective. We all have frameworks through which we view the world.

just because the brain acts in certain ways during dreams it doesn’t mean that there is something “more” not going on.

Some people experience a something more, others are keen to reject that concept.

People see the world in different ways. We’ve all got our Gods. Some people think there’s are more real and justifiable than others. But despite popular opinion Gods aren’t immortal. But even if we kill a God new ones will arise

Wait, so you are postulating the existence of other worlds unknown to us, other dimensions unknown to us, and a means of accessing those, all for the purpose of explaining the existence of the rather mundane and well understood phenomenon of involuntary thought while asleep?

Don't you think that is all a bit cart before horse? Pangloss' theory of noses? Needless added complexity and all that.

Even though being under the effects of anaesthesia is not the same as a sleep state, there is a period where the brain is not yet fully under the effect, and likewise, when it wears off it isn't just an "out one moment, lucid the next" experience, so I don't think it's at all strange that the brain might experience involuntary thought at those points.

There are even people who can lucid dream, I am one of them, although I do not have the degree of control over it that some people do. Why then, don't those people go taking themselves off to other worlds and other dimensions given that they evidently have both the means, and the control over their own dream states? At least, even if they are doing this, they are keeping very quiet about it.

We’ve all got our Gods

Err, no. I can assure you that we do not "all" have our gods.

Oh I take myself off to lots of places lucid dreaming.

in pretty sure the multiverse is quite a well known scientific theory

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet

Was that supposed to be meaningful or just a random quote?
No, we don't all have Gods.

Evolution, genetics and survival of the fittest.

Right, but is there anything whatsoever that suggests any of these places are anywhere other than inside your own brain?

Multiverse is certainly a "theory", but I am sceptical as to whether multiverse theories are in any way scientific theories.

I do not accept that the simple fact some people dream, some people lucid dream, and some people's dreams take place in an environment that is certainly not the real world as we accept it, is indicative of the existence of other universes, because that is all much more easily explained by it simply taking place within the confines of our imaginations and our own skulls.

I love this question. The number of A level students with a few more brain cells than the average who have pondered this and become completely unstuck. And from that point on have lost their religion.
If god is omnipresent how can he allow evil to exist? He obviously can't be all loving for bad to happen.
So...that's when the fudge from philosophers comes in when they basically make excuses for him; "He's god soooo, erm...leap of faith?!, will that do?!"
No it won't. It logically doesn't work.

Well this is exactly what started me down the path of Atheism, the obvious logical contradictions, and the propensity to just wave away the awkward questions as "mysterious ways", or "unknowable", which is marvellously convenient for the purpose of maintaining an indefensible position.

Not that I was ever in any way less that sceptical to begin with, because I can distinctly remember standing in P1 and P2 religious service, so 4-6 years old, thinking, "that is nonsense, people do not come back from the dead, and nor can they perform miracles, why are adults telling fibs?" and getting no satisfactory answers to my questions.

I think it genuinely would be great to live in a universe whereby when we shuffle off this mortal coil, we find ourselves reinvented in some sort of eternal, ethereal state that persists in a euphoric paradise where we want for nothing, but given that the very basic precepts of the belief system which espouses this fall flat when questioned by mere children with even their limited powers of logic, deduction, and common sense, I can not lend it any credence whatsoever.

If a child can pick holes in the logic, and your best response is "it just is that way", then it's abundantly clear that in order to continue to believe you must suspend disbelief, ignore common sense, and never, whatever you do, apply some basic logic and deduction. That, to me, is what "faith" is, i.e. lying to yourself and denying the very basic tools your own brain provides you with, and I can not in good conscience bring myself to do it, I never have been able to, and I never will.

I’m sure with your obviously superior analytical skills you can work out the meaning.

if not, it might be worth investing some time with poetry.

Ultimately Blake was right about the pain of the division of Los and Urizen

But then we’re left with you don’t believe something that many scientists do.

What is there to suggest that dreams are limited to the brain? My experiences would indicate that there is much more, but at the end of the day neither of us can be proved right. You might claim my views are extraordinary, but to me, your views are extraordinary.

what is imagination? If it’s just a collection of information AI should already be outrunning human creativity enormously. Yet in terms of originality it’s not even coming close (and still requires human intervention) why is that?

Interestingly, some of the most intelligent people I’ve come across believe in God/gods/goddess. But, often not conventionally so.

If the students are basing their whole world view on the existence of the divine based on a presentation of one God out of the hundreds/probably thousands of gods who have been written and talked about throughout humanity, they might need to apply their “few more brain cells than average” to wider inputs.

How many of these erudite 17 year olds discuss Christian Gnosticism, Neoplatonic views, Greek philosophy, Hermeticism? How many blindly believe a man can become a woman and argue in favour of that totally illogical ideology?

Interestingly, I attended catholic schools, it momentarily sent me atheist because the religion was presented in such a black and white manner. However, life experience, further knowledge and contemplation has led me to a world view where the divine is obvious. It won’t be the same concept of divinity that is probably being contemplated by your teenagers, but it is the concept contemplated by many, a concept beyond the good loving omnipotent God that is, in fact, a vanishingly small minority understanding of the divine when considered in the context of humanity’s existence

But then we’re left with you don’t believe something that many scientists do.

Is that re multiverses? Pretty sure most scientific theorising about the concept doesn't have anything whatever to do with dreaming.

What is there to suggest that dreams are limited to the brain?

Scientific studies of brain activity. Total lack of any plausible mechanism for dreams being anything other than the product of the human mind (although that may in some senses extend beyond the brain itself to other parts of the body... presumably various hormone imbalances, a surge of adrenalin or whatever can have significant effects on the brain and therefore on dreams)

what is imagination? If it’s just a collection of information AI should already be outrunning human creativity enormously. Yet in terms of originality it’s not even coming close (and still requires human intervention) why is that?

Imagination pretty obviously isn't 'just a collection of information'.

Interestingly, some of the most intelligent people I’ve come across believe in God/gods/goddess.

Interestingly, I find most of the intelligent people I come across know a fair bit about religions and philosophy but do not believe in the supernatural.
Maybe not that interesting just biased sampling?

But then we’re left with you don’t believe something that many scientists do

Assuming you are talking about Multiverses again here, because it isn't 100% clear, then I'll just reiterate that while Multiverses are certainly a known topic of discussion and debate, they don't fall into the category of "scientific" theories, and therefore no actual scientist worth a damn really pays them much heed. It is an interesting subject, but since it simply can not meet the criterion for scientific study, it is not scientific. Philosophical, undoubtedly.

What is there to suggest that dreams are limited to the brain?

The fact that there is nothing of any substance whatsoever that suggests anything otherwise.

You might claim my views are extraordinary, but to me, your views are extraordinary

Fine, but again, I'll ask why you apparently don't see the enormous absurdity of going off postulating wild and wonderful scenario, like alternate universes and dimensions, as a means to explain something totally mundane like dreams, rather than the much more obvious, mundane, observable explanations. And on top of that, you keep bringing up "science", despite making all sorts of deeply unscientific claims.

what is imagination? If it’s just a collection of information AI should already be outrunning human creativity enormously. Yet in terms of originality it’s not even coming close (and still requires human intervention) why is that?

I have no idea what point you are attempting to make here, but AI should already be outrunning human creativity enormously is a nonsense statement. AI is the product of human endeavour to engineer some sort of rudimentary machine sentience. It requires human input to produce output, and until such time the machine sentience surpasses that of humanity itself, this will always, unsurprisingly, remain the case. You seem to be making an argument that a 6 year old pupil should be more learned than a 50 year old teacher, simply because the pupil has the knowledge of the 50 year old on tap, which is palpably ridiculous.

but then the issue is due to it being written by humans then its all based on human perspectives and still does not help understand anything about "god" only what some other humans want other humans to presume about god

But can’t you see that everything you have said is merely a reflection of your view on life? Absolutely nothing in what you have said excludes any of the possibilities mentioned elsewhere.

Re imagination - what is palpably absurd is you seem to think imagination is purely a biological act, a synthesis of many different inputs If it was it would have been recreated by AI by now.

God doesn't exist. The mere fact that there have been so many (made-up) gods surely makes it very obvious that it's daft to think it's coincidentally your own god that exists and everyone else's doesn't.

Even if there were a god, I can't fathom why anyone would assume that the stuff that humans have claimed to know about this spurious divine being would be accurate. In which case he/she could just as well be a mean, angry god - so the suffering in the world would be no surprise.

Any god who created things like cancer and motor neurone disease, or allowed natural disasters to kill innocent children,whether as part of some free will-based test or not, would not be a merciful god, but a sadistic arsehole.