Originally posted by mokkoAs when a starving child in a famine-ridden country doesn't get any food?
I believe there are things beyond my understanding.
Over the years I've taken various aspects of many religions and have incorperated them into my own form of understanding.
I also believe in the power of the human mind. Affirm what you know to be true in your heart, and you will create that reality. So essentially whatever I create in my mind to be tr ...[text shortened]... ce it always appears. Just because it isn't what we want to hear doesn't make it unanswered.
Originally posted by mokkoBasic logic dictates that solutions always come (if they come) when you reach your lowest point of dispair. This is identical to the "I always find it in the last place I looked" phenomena. You never sink lower or look further after the solution has already been found. Simple logic also dictates that those who do not eventually find a solution usually get ignored in the equation.
At what seems the very brink of despair certain twists of fate occur that lead such a person to experience very humbling circumstances and become reminded of all the could have beens and how life has been truly full of miricles and blessings. Seemingly impossible circumstances and a very clear message to one who who is longing for answers.
The apparent possitive feedback can never be used as evidence for the existence of God as it can be shown to be identical to similar beliefs such as astrology, and gambling.(lucky numbers etc)
The number of unanswered prayers should actually be taken as evidence for abscence of a benevolent God.
Originally posted by mokkoYou position is somewhat Confus(ed(ing)). As far as I can make out it constitutes this:
I believe there are things beyond my understanding.
Over the years I've taken various aspects of many religions and have incorperated them into my own form of understanding.
I also believe in the power of the human mind. Affirm what you know to be true in your heart, and you will create that reality. So essentially whatever I create in my mind to be tr ...[text shortened]... ce it always appears. Just because it isn't what we want to hear doesn't make it unanswered.
1) In the question of god(s), there are things you cannot explain or do not have the capacity to understand.
2) Concerning religion, you have taken what you do understand and created your own form of belief.
3) Whatever you believe to be true is true (in regards to god(s)).
4) You recieve results from god, regardless of whether they are what you wanted or asked for.
Regarding 1 & 2, if you make your own god out of what you do understand, how can there be a god? Is it not just you and your brain?
Regarding 3, if what you believe to be true is what is true you are creating a self-affirming belief structure similar to 'Jesus was the son of god because it says so in the bible, the bible is true because it is the work of god, therefore Jesus was the son of god'.
Regarding 4, if you recieve results/answers etc. upon asking for them, are you not just witnessing cause and event? Especially considering that the results are not always what you asked for? Also, consider a world in which god did not exist, is it not possible that these same things could ahve happened without his intervention? If so, surely it is more parsimonious that he had nothing to do with your experiences.
Originally posted by whodeyRead the classic book " STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING" by Late Dale Carnegie. This book was a world-wide bestseller of the last century. I think mokko too can find the answers there.
I can only talk about what I believe and what I have expereinced in regards to my own faith which is based in scripture. I will therefore talk in terms of the Christian faith. When Moses asked God who he should say has sent him God retorted, "I am that I am". He is simply the totality of reality. Can one fully understand or comprehend or label the totali nd allowing God to work through you. As Christ says, "My grace is sufficient for you".
Originally posted by twhiteheadI agree to a point. When a person has hit rock bottom with nowhere else to turn they'll often turn towards God and attribute any resolutions to answered prayers. But I've found that even without desperation and despair Gods presence is still very clearly found. I guess I should say that in my own personal search for understanding God I've been able to look back throughout my life and see clearly how it's not just in the moments of darkness God has magically appeared and made life better. It's been a constant presence that has quietly existed with or without my acknowledgement. Always present and always serving to guide, protect and comfort. Then again my mind would have to create such evidence in order to permit the psychological need for God to serve it's function. Go figure.
Basic logic dictates that solutions always come (if they come) when you reach your lowest point of dispair. This is identical to the "I always find it in the last place I looked" phenomena. You never sink lower or look further after the solution has already been found. Simple logic also dictates that those who do not eventually find a solution usually get ...[text shortened]... r of unanswered prayers should actually be taken as evidence for abscence of a benevolent God.
With all the science and complex theories that have been developed, which one of them can protect a person in death?
What if the truth you hold in your physical life determines the power that you consequently have over death?
If I was to die holding a truth that God doesn't exist and at death I find out he does exist, would my truth protect me? No, because I said God didn't exist. The same way goes for if I held a truth that God did exist but when I died there was no God, wouldn't I be banished somewhere?
The point that I am trying to make here is that maybe what you come to accept in you human life is what you will hold true to in the life to come after death, because who believes that after death there is just darkness? I know that what you hold true to in this life must endure the purifying fire after death. If your truth is strong enough to endure it, then you enter eternal paradise. The real question now is "Will Science, a concept created by humans for humans be able to grant a spirit or soul eternal rest?"
The basis of religion or Christianity is that after death the truth we hold grants us eternal paradise. That fact therefore shapes our everyday lives. So the way we plan to be eternally is the way we try to live as humans, pure and righteous.
By denying that there is a God, the only thing anyone achieves is taking himself away from eternal paradise because he or she doesn't BELIEVE in it. I find eternal paradise easy to believe in because I haven't seen it and it occurs after death. I don't know what happens after death and if someone tells me that I will be in paradise forever if I only believe in a son and a father, I'm going to do it, proof or not, because no scientist can die, analyze death, and return with a theory.