PatsFans.com Menu
PatsFans.com - The Hub For New England Patriots Fans

How do you define "God" without religion?


It only took the Catholic church a few centuries to say "oops" about what they did to Galileo...

I will rephrase: Show me one tiny shred of evidence of a God as defined by a religion. This should explain better what I mean by faith forcing you to suspend reason.


People within the Catholic church have done many things that would be considered wrong by it's own standards (including myself). What does that have to do with faith and reason being contradictory?

What would you consider a "tiny shred of evidence"?
 
The American government has members of a committee on SCIENCE believing that The Big Bang Theory and evolution are Satan's attempt to subvert God's word and that women have a secret anti-pregnancy mechanism in their uterus in the event of rape. These are people who are determining the future of humanity.

Really. My money says there are women out there who would disagree with that LOL.

Too bad the American govt doesn't disclose everything these Science committees are really working on. I'm not getting political I'm just agreeing that powerful people can be sociopathic cretins just like anybody else; many very powerful people are practicing Luciferians/Satanists, and many powerful people claim their power to come directly from God. Both kinds are equally creepy.
 
People within the Catholic church have done many things that would be considered wrong by it's own standards (including myself). What does that have to do with faith and reason being contradictory?

What would you consider a "tiny shred of evidence"?

Any single thing that you could use to make a case for there to exist a God. You will find that there is nothing however, which leads to my point.
 
Also, I ventured south to the political forum just now and saw that they had to institute new rules to avoid chaos and it made me really happy to be part of a conversation about religion in an online forum for 42 posts with multiple people who believe different things and have it be completely respectful and enjoyable. Thank you guys again for being patient, open minded, informative, and awesome.
 
Any single thing that you could use to make a case for there to exist a God. You will find that there is nothing however, which leads to my point.


Well, I've had these discussions with people before and then I bring up evidence and it suddenly isn't acceptable evidence. Soooo.....that's why I'm asking you what you would consider to be acceptable evidence. Unless you're saying that any evidence I give you will be acceptable.
 
Also, I ventured south to the political forum just now and saw that they had to institute new rules to avoid chaos and it made me really happy to be part of a conversation about religion in an online forum for 42 posts with multiple people who believe different things and have it be completely respectful and enjoyable. Thank you guys again for being patient, open minded, informative, and awesome.

You're welcome :D
 
On the subject of various types of terrorists who explain themselves with religion, I think I'm with LND. And it doesn't much matter that they explain themselves to themselves using religion (i.e., that they are fanatics rather than charlatans.) They could as easily explain themselves using junk science, as in the case of the Nazis, as using junk religion, as in the case of suicide bombers. A serious conversation about the thing itself is probably not well-served by a sidetrack about the deleterious effects of believing its distortions.

But it does bring to mind the question of how one gets from rather strict and rule-driven interpretations of religions (especially the Abrahamic faiths) to the somewhat more mystic wool-gathering we're engaged in here.

The truth is that our new-agey culture isn't alone (we've mentioned Spinoza already). There have always been philosophic and mystic currents in the very religions that give rise to the destructive zealots. By and large, the mystics and philosophers have not been the ones blowing up the buildings.

I feel certain that given the prior examples in this post, somebody will bring up the occultism that was all the rage among the Nazi leadership; I don't think, however, that you get to Auschwitz through mysticism, but through psuedo-science.

PFnV
 
I feel certain that given the prior examples in this post, somebody will bring up the occultism that was all the rage among the Nazi leadership; I don't think, however, that you get to Auschwitz through mysticism, but through psuedo-science.

It's well documented that Himmler, Heydrich and other top SS officals were into the occult.
 
It's well documented that Himmler, Heydrich and other top SS officals were into the occult.

Yes it is. I think I just said that, in fact. I don't think, however, that it went much beyond a Dungeons&Dragons-type fascination. However, their genocidal excesses were fueled by psuedoscientific racist theory.

They were certainly a mixed bag. Gotta go to work now though.
 
Well, I've had these discussions with people before and then I bring up evidence and it suddenly isn't acceptable evidence. Soooo.....that's why I'm asking you what you would consider to be acceptable evidence. Unless you're saying that any evidence I give you will be acceptable.

Something that a non-biased third party could look at see that the most logical conclusion is X.

Any evidence you have is acceptable, I just have presupposed doubts that it will logically point towards a supreme being, specifically any of the thousands written about during human history.

An example of evidence I've heard before: Trees. I will not accept "trees" as evidence of a supreme being. :D
 
I don't think, however, that it went much beyond a Dungeons&Dragons-type fascination.

Do some research on that.

Despite decades of study into the Hitler phenomenon, there is not much attention paid to Nazi connections with mystical and occult elements as perhaps there should be.

A respected British writer on Ancient Wisdom, Nigel Pennick, sees in Hitler and the Nazi phenomenon the perversion of occult forces. “The whole Nazi ethos grew out of a magical view of the world,” says Pennick in Hitler’s Secret Sciences, “and the history of Nazi Germany was forged by strange fanatics whose actions can only be explained in occult terms. To orthodox historians, their crimes can only be dismissed as crazy obsessions, yet in terms of certain well-established occult beliefs, they fit a well-defined pattern. Far from being just another political doctrine, Nazism was nothing less than a deliberate magical attempt to alter the world.”

There is certainly an undeniable occult link in the early history of the Nazi Party. Unfortunately, it is buried in an avalanche of disinformation and sensationalism, promoted in largely spurious books by authors like Trevor Ravenscroft, a former British intelligence officer. Such exaggerated and wildly inaccurate writings serve to screen and distract attention from the real power sources of the Nazi occult connection.
Hitler/Occult

I googled nazis and the occult, lots of links came up but I thought the fact this one came from a gnostic site made it a more interesting viewpoint to post. It seems that much is definitely true lol. The article starts after all the links at the beginning.

They were serious practitioners of some very dark stuff.
 
I've done some research on that :)

My characterization has to do with the depth of spirituality, or more to the point, lack thereof. But I suppose if you'd like, you can lay Hitler on the doorstep of religion as well, and Stalin studied to be a priest. I'm not quite sure how Mao fits into the "Holy Terror" pattern, but you can simply re-characterize a specifically atheist doctrine -- Marxism-Leninism -- as a religion, and look ma, everything's religion's fault.

I've actually espoused such a line in the past, but I don't think it's accurate.

PFnV
 
Something that a non-biased third party could look at see that the most logical conclusion is X.

Any evidence you have is acceptable, I just have presupposed doubts that it will logically point towards a supreme being, specifically any of the thousands written about during human history.

An example of evidence I've heard before: Trees. I will not accept "trees" as evidence of a supreme being. :D


Again, that really doesn't answer my question. You say that any evidence I have is acceptable but then you say that "trees" are not acceptable. Once you say something isn't acceptable (after you say anything is acceptable), then only some (and defintitely not all) things are acceptable as evidence. Can you give me one example of what you would consider acceptable evidence?
 
Again, that really doesn't answer my question. You say that any evidence I have is acceptable but then you say that "trees" are not acceptable. Once you say something isn't acceptable (after you say anything is acceptable), then only some (and defintitely not all) things are acceptable as evidence. Can you give me one example of what you would consider acceptable evidence?

If I were to tell you I had a wheel barrow in my garage, evidence would be anything that could prove that statement or disprove all other statements.

Per the God evidence, I'll say that if you do have real evidence, you will win every award ever.
 
If I were to tell you I had a wheel barrow in my garage, evidence would be anything that could prove that statement or disprove all other statements.

Per the God evidence, I'll say that if you do have real evidence, you will win every award ever.

Evidence of the existence of your wheel barrow could be a video tape of your house and of the wheel barrow inside of your house. There......I've given you an example.

By not giving me a single example of evidence that you would accept, you're saying is that there is no evidence that you will accept to prove there is a God.
 
Evidence of the existence of your wheel barrow could be a video tape of your house and of the wheel barrow inside of your house. There......I've given you an example.

By not giving me a single example of evidence that you would accept, you're saying is that there is no evidence that you will accept to prove there is a God.

I've stated multiple times that I don't think you can prove it (nor could anyone else) and if you could you'd be world famous instantly.

Here, evidence would be what you use to justify your own beliefs. It almost assuredly wouldn't cause me to believe the same (though I can't say for sure without hearing it! :p) but it would allow us to understand further the beliefs (or non-beliefs) of others!
 
Perhaps the single most successful theoretical construct we have is quantum mechanics. We have no idea how it works. One of the biggies in the field, Richard Feynman, says it's safe to say nobody understands it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for finding out as much as we possibly can about our universe. The funny part is, one principle of quantum mechanics is we can't know some of it.

I have no problem with the idea that we have to posit subjective religious belief with only indirect proof of whatever each belief espouses -- for example, the phenomena of life, or of subjective consciousness. We can examine the evidence for how it is that religious is a universal impulse, despite the "what if nobody's parents ever had a religion" counter. Stomp it out in the middle of a forest somewhere, and it'll come back a generation later. Why?

The answer can simply be that that's how our minds work. That doesn't prove the postulates of any given religion. It does make the exercise of challenging the religious for proof something of a fool's errand.

Sort of like trying to know all there is to know about a particle.

PFnV
 
Perhaps the single most successful theoretical construct we have is quantum mechanics. We have no idea how it works. One of the biggies in the field, Richard Feynman, says it's safe to say nobody understands it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for finding out as much as we possibly can about our universe. The funny part is, one principle of quantum mechanics is we can't know some of it.

I have no problem with the idea that we have to posit subjective religious belief with only indirect proof of whatever each belief espouses -- for example, the phenomena of life, or of subjective consciousness. We can examine the evidence for how it is that religious is a universal impulse, despite the "what if nobody's parents ever had a religion" counter. Stomp it out in the middle of a forest somewhere, and it'll come back a generation later. Why?

The answer can simply be that that's how our minds work. That doesn't prove the postulates of any given religion. It does make the exercise of challenging the religious for proof something of a fool's errand.

Sort of like trying to know all there is to know about a particle.

PFnV

I'm wondering why I am supposed to believe this [bolded] as fact? You've insinuated it as such a few times now, referring to our innate quest for answers, yet I thought I explained that a quest for answers is significantly different than having a genetic predisposition to religion.

This video: The Erosion of Progress by Religions - YouTube (10 minutes) by Niel deGrasse Tyson gives a good explanation as to why religion is dangerous to human progress with probably the most significant example there is (Islam).

When you listen to this video and then realize the things recently stated by some GOP members of the House Science Committee, it should scare you.
 
I'm wondering why I am supposed to believe this [bolded] as fact? You've insinuated it as such a few times now, referring to our innate quest for answers, yet I thought I explained that a quest for answers is significantly different than having a genetic predisposition to religion.

This video: The Erosion of Progress by Religions - YouTube (10 minutes) by Niel deGrasse Tyson gives a good explanation as to why religion is dangerous to human progress with probably the most significant example there is (Islam).

When you listen to this video and then realize the things recently stated by some GOP members of the House Science Committee, it should scare you.


Yes, human "progress".....progress as defined by whom?
 


Thursday Patriots Notebook 4/25: News and Notes
Patriots Kraft ‘Involved’ In Decision Making?  Zolak Says That’s Not the Case
MORSE: Final First Round Patriots Mock Draft
Slow Starts: Stark Contrast as Patriots Ponder Which Top QB To Draft
Wednesday Patriots Notebook 4/24: News and Notes
Tuesday Patriots Notebook 4/23: News and Notes
MORSE: Final 7 Round Patriots Mock Draft, Matthew Slater News
Bruschi’s Proudest Moment: Former LB Speaks to MusketFire’s Marshall in Recent Interview
Monday Patriots Notebook 4/22: News and Notes
Patriots News 4-21, Kraft-Belichick, A.J. Brown Trade?
Back
Top