Atheists and proof cont….

[Kdtym10]

A carry on from the previous thread

Or maybe the actions of man in not caring for the planet have triggered a destruct cycle embedded by God into the world😀

From looking around me. I have concluded this from all the unnecessary, violence, unrewarded goodness, and rewarded abuse. From the uneven starts on life that means whether a child will be safe in infancy is a complete lottery, and having a chance at health, wealth and education is only available to a tiny fraction of all who are born. That certainty of food and clean water is unavailable to vast swathes of humanity. That animals as well as other humans suffer at our hands. That almost no child born into a miserable start in life will be able to get out of it, and that suffering is inevitable no matter what that child believes. That men who claim the wisdom of 'God' are responsible for some of the worst injustices.

From this I conclude that there is very unlikely to be any form of all-powerful God, who engineered life as we know it and who has any love for or interest in anyone's welfare, animal or human.
If there was, then my strongly held conclusion is that things would be different to the way they are now.

But as I said early on in the thread, if I'm wrong, and there is an all powerful God who engineered and is actively overseeing all that I mention above, then I have no time for him and his methods and the closest word I can find for what I feel about a God of that nature is contempt. So any such God is still irrelevant to me as a factual matter, and I organise my life on the assumption of either irrelevance or lack of existence, whichever happens to be the case.

Where does that thought come from?

@Kdtym10 It comes from my brain! Where do your thoughts come from?

The feeling people who believe in a god have? No.

But if you're asking if I know where my feeling comes from -- I do not feel the presence of God. There's just nothing there for me. There's a lack of feeling or sensing. It's not like I just made a logical decision that there is no God. When I realized I do not feel the presence of a God or gods, I began to understand that humans have always made up creation stories to try to explain how the world and all living creatures came to be. Maybe theists have tried to explain why they feel the presence of God and I have been trying to explain why I do not.

I guess have more than a feeling, it’s more an inner world, an inner knowledge, a connection to the divine but the experience takes some cultivating to reach its full potential.

Some people seem to have this connection, others don’t. Why is this? Some people seem to be born with it, some people have a road to Damascus moment, there’s lots of religious allegory about this point, usually about the blind being given sight.

But I think the absence of a feeling, is significantly different to having a feeling. Eg, if you have never felt love, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist even if it feels like that for you. How can something exist you don’t feel?

Well that’s a big question and one that philosophers and scientists have made various attempts to answer. Ultimately no one can give a truly full answer. Steiners “The philosophy of freedom” is an interesting read on this.

Ultimately, I think thoughts come from the different levels of the imagination. I believe the deepest levels of the imagination are our connection to the Divine.

Just for background, I was raised in a Christian household. I went to church regularly. As a child, I even went to church by myself on the bus so I could be at Sunday school. I spoke to God all the time and had what I now consider to be a relationship that is like other children have with an imaginary friend.

I grew out of this. It felt like my imaginary friend went away and I didn't feel them anymore. I tried to understand this and came to believe that the feeling that there is a god is a psychological need that people have. It's an internal thing to the individual that does not require the existence of a god.

Interesting! And what made you lose your faith?

See, this just sounds like making shit up as you go along to me. I’m much more comfortable with ´I don’t know’ as an answer to this sort of question than ´the divine’.

And why does it sound like, we “making shit up”?

Because so there are so many theories and debates about where thoughts and imagination come from. One theory, a la Dawkin, is that it is a misfiring of the human language ability to explain potential risks to each other. Another theory is the Divine. The absence of a concrete scientific theory to explain how thoughts and imagination are created doesn’t then mean it has to be the Divine.

And why does it sound like, we “making shit up

Because humans yearn for something more when a life comes to an end, whether for the person who has left us, or for ourselves. The genius of religions – consciously or not – has been to develop whole theologies and funeral rituals around that urge. They are basically taking advantage of people's yearning for some 'meaning' or 'purpose'.

We humans are just like any other species that procreate and pass on our genes in order to survive. We make the best of our short time on earth without needing the false hope of believing in some man made deity or fairy.

I think I just matured and learned to think for myself. I started acknowledging what things I believed or felt vs what I had been told to believe or feel by others.

So true - learning to think for yourself is the greatest skill.

Ah, so you think people who believe in the Divine are incapable of thinking for themselves?

it’s interesting isn’t it, that in childhood we are often the most free of thought, our most imaginative and most creative, yet as we get older we are confined by thoughts of what is right and wrong? What we should think? How we should behave, Why is a child ok to have an imaginary friend but for an adult it would result in a trip to a therapist. Where does this cut off come from? What does it mean to “grow out of something” I would argue that it’s as we learn how to conform, how to align and contain out thoughts with what is acceptable (which usually means compliant and productive), when we forget how to be a child. That is when we lose our ability to think.

“Suffer little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

Learn to think for yourself, or learn what to think for yourself?

But your whole hypothesis is predicated on the idea that humans have created the idea of an afterlife. It does not exclude the possibility of an afterlife.

Maybe this is the afterlife? I quite like the Neoplatonic concept of dying into this world.

But it doesn’t exclude it either. The thing is we have no idea about these things. So, if someone says my thoughts come from my brain. They are just making shit up too? I generally start my comments, I believe….

You’re right, we do not objectively know. We can have internal gnosis, but this is only viable if you think existence is more than physical, then it frees up where you consider these things come from.

But if you only believe in only the physical material world you have to be able to confidently assign everything to the material, which we can’t.

Because you haven’t defined imagination or explained how it has levels of varying depth. Or described the nature of this connection to ´the divine’ or given a satisfactory explanation as to what ´the divine’ is supposed to be anyway.

To me it just reads as a bunch of words that are supposed to sound profound but which don’t mean much to me.

Or alternatively, if I wanted to be facetious: isn’t imagination just our capacity for making shit up anyway?

Being able to think for yourself is a great skill. Something we actively taught DT’s - work things out and then decide for yourself what to do. You don’t have to follow the crowd if you think it’s the wrong thing to do. Applies to everything we do in life.

Why do I need to read the whole thread just to ascertain what atheist is looking for as evidence that may make them ponder about a Creator?

Is that too difficult to answer?

And instead of answering the query where did the knowledge of the creation of the universe found in the Qur'an came from, you belittle it?

One can safely conclude that you clearly don't know where that knowledge came from and instead spouting rubbish.

If you have any recent knowledge of creation and expansion of the universe, you will find what is mentioned in the Qur'an is 100% accurate, the only mystery is how did that knowledge ended up in that Qur'an in the 7th century when science only made these discoveries recently?

You clearly can't seem to apply your common sense and answer the question of when did the knowledge about the Big Bang discovered?

And how did someone in the 7th century could mention it with 100% accuracy?

You cannot have a debate if youre not will be be truthful and answer questions posed?

One possible explanation for some people feeling 'the divine' strongly, some a little, and some not at all could be due to neurodivergence, a spectrum of you will. The degree to which some people 'believe' in something is built into DNA, the way we are genetically wired. Once we all realise that we are all different, and some people are more of this world and very happy with it, whereas some people diverge from that, needing to have an invented alternative to make sense of the world, we will all rub along just fine. One end of the scale you could place people like the Westboro' Baptists, Muslim Fundamentalists, and people who take the bible as literally true, through to the other end with people who give the whole concept not a second thought. In between you get people who maybe go to church every so often, or say they believe in god without too much thought. I have a lot more time for 'spirituality', seeking yourself to find what you think is right. Quoting old books really grinds my gears because it is used as fact, rather than what it is - an old book(s). The ability of humans to create so many variations of religious worship just devalues the whole subject and makes organised religions seem even more ridiculous.

I don't know what you mean by you'd seen about Muhammad's embryology before.

Can you elaborate what it is that you have seen to enlighten us instead of making unfound sweeping statements?

I've clearly given references to eminent scientists who have studied and written embryology encyolpida as according to the Qur'an which modern science did not know until recently.

Yet, you're not an embryologist I'm assuming hence, you would have known about it or cake across it.

I'm not asking you to believe what I saying but asking you check that what id stated in the Qur'an is in line with modern science considering thr Qur'an was revealed in the 7th century?

I grew up a long time ago. None of my friends and family did not believe in God. I went to a religious school. Not believing in God was not expected or encouraged. So yes, I was learning to think for myself.