posted 04-07-2001 10:47 AM            

Anything that has been perceived exists from the moment of thought. God, in one form or another, would then exist by the very process of thought.

So, some answerable questions would be:

'How do you validate your perception of God's existance?'

'Do you accept common perceptions of God? True or false.'

At what level of definition does your perception of God rest?

...And perhaps the right way to ask the question...

The existence of God is more than just a concept perceived. True or false?

You Certainly Can't Answer A Question Like This Playing Dragons Simple IQ Game.

posted 04-07-2001 11:03 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lolo:
false

---

No, true!

In the name of God, I'll batter you!

In the name of Allah, I'll disembowel you!

In the name of Odin, I'll incinerate you!

I will make you see things my way!

Or else I'll make you read through that thread of yours, post by post, making you savour some of the stupid posts that some around here would consider to be intellectual discourse.

You're walking through the valley of darkness my friend, and your rabble rousing ways will come to an end... behind bars!

posted 04-07-2001 11:06 AM            

Mongoose...."eeeek!"

quote:

---

Originally posted by louismyager:
I percieve myself. I also perciece more than myself. I percieve others who also may or may not percieve me. Who am I?

---

posted 04-07-2001 11:11 AM            

Later.

posted 04-07-2001 11:20 AM            

3,000 times people in the Greenlight Forum have posted in a thread that asks a laughable, already answered question.

Lolo could not have possibly even started her thread without the existence, on one mental level or another, of the same concept that she is asking the existence of.

posted 04-07-2001 11:26 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ARTRA:
Blondie, a joke. Just trying to correct simple misconceptions about the word exist.

3,000 times people in the Greenlight Forum have posted in a thread that asks a laughable, already answered question.

Lolo could not have possibly even started her thread without the existence, on one mental level or another, of the same concept that she is asking the existence of.

It is, as worded, as silly as asking if there is ice cream or mud pies. If it has been perceived it already exists.

---

copy that.

posted 04-07-2001 11:53 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by louismyager:
...now, if i could just learn how to put time in a bottle...

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posted 04-07-2001 11:59 AM            

Why does one of the good guys, someone like the writer of 'Time In A Bottle' die so young and we get stuck with the assholes (Thurman and Ronnie, etc.) who just seem to live on and on.

I miss Jim C.

Later

posted 04-07-2001 02:40 PM            

While my personal beliefs steer one way, I will acknowlegde that this is not because God's existence is obvious be sheer nature of us wanting one.

We want to be taken care of. We are afraid of death. We are afraid of what we don't understand.

So here is how we may have created "god" without the existence of one. (assumming we mean by god a creator who is sentient because the Force or Sum of All Parts is a whole other debate).

I know my parents once took care of me.

As an adult, no one is there.

I create an adult in my head, like an imaginary friend.

This adult is supernatural because I want so much taken care of, a mere mortal cannot do this.

PART 2
I don't know where I came from. I want to know where I'm going after I die. I don't want to stop existing. I create an afterlife.

I give this afterlife realm to my imaginary friend.

PART 3
What is this vastness in the universe. I am not it's creator. But I create. This must have a creator too. I must have a creator (evolution is too foreign a concept. all i can draw on is the tribe and the ground and the height of the sky).

I give the role of creator to my imaginary friend.

PART 4
This imaginary creator/friend/parent must have others like him. Just like the tribe.

THUS a cosmology is created.

We create God in our image.

posted 04-07-2001 02:43 PM            

2+2=4

Four is not 2. It is different. It is larger than any part and it is a number alone. God is 4 and I am a part of the equation (2).

posted 04-07-2001 06:53 PM            

Why did man perceive satan to begin with?
We had to give God someone to battle?

Or is evil really mankind exercising free will?

I enjoy this discussion.

bump

posted 04-07-2001 07:13 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ARTRA:
So to ask a question like does God exist is entirely moot.

You could not even type the name God without already having acknowledged the existence of such a concept on some level of your thinking process.

---

Ah, you've come at this from a different angle, asked a different question. Not "does god exist," but rather, "do you recognize or accept the concept of a god?" Whole 'nother ball game. We can conceive of many things--not all of them exist in our concrete world. They don't need to, so long as they interest and entertain us, right? One needn't accept the truth of a concept in order to acknowledge its existence. Not the existence of the thing conceived of, mind you, but the existence of the concept.

Right?

posted 04-07-2001 07:15 PM            

I was neither claiming a belief nor disblief in a Deity or other Celestial Being as Creator.

I was simply stating that the wrong question was being asked. Again, by the very nature of one's ability to comprehend, conceive, or create (abstract thought) anything we perceive on whatever level exists from the moment of perception.

You could not type the word God if one form or another of the concept of a God did not exist. So, if you can think it, it exists on some level.

Just simply the point.

As to what I personally believe about God, it is what I personally 'feel' that is more important. Without having physical proof, I know there is something there. I do, indeed, sometimes 'feel' a presence (call it my angel, your God or whatever) that logic will not and can not explain away. And am as equally likely to consider principles of karma and re-birth as possible.

posted 04-07-2001 07:16 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by justina:
Actually, I'm gonna have to disagree with ARTRA here.

While my personal beliefs steer one way, I will acknowlegde that this is not because God's existence is obvious be sheer nature of us wanting one.

We want to be taken care of. We are afraid of death. We are afraid of what we don't understand.

So here is how we may have created "god" without the existence of one. (assumming we mean by god a creator who is sentient because the Force or Sum of All Parts is a whole other debate).

I know my parents once took care of me.

As an adult, no one is there.

I create an adult in my head, like an imaginary friend.

This adult is supernatural because I want so much taken care of, a mere mortal cannot do this.

PART 2
I don't know where I came from. I want to know where I'm going after I die. I don't want to stop existing. I create an afterlife.

I give this afterlife realm to my imaginary friend.

PART 3
What is this vastness in the universe. I am not it's creator. But I create. This must have a creator too. I must have a creator (evolution is too foreign a concept. all i can draw on is the tribe and the ground and the height of the sky).

I give the role of creator to my imaginary friend.

PART 4
This imaginary creator/friend/parent must have others like him. Just like the tribe.

THUS a cosmology is created.

We create God in our image.

Sorry ARTRA, I believe in God, but logic never takes you there. There's a reply to every argument. That's why the debate still exists.

---

Justina, such honesty is rare when the subject is deities. Lovely post, I enjoyed reading it.

posted 04-07-2001 07:24 PM            

If it is perceived it exists, be it God or dog.

So, try this factor:

If we could erase a recorded history, say the existance of a war called World War II, from our minds, erase all traces of it from our history books, erase it from the minds of those old enough (and still living) to have lived through it...would this erased history still exist?

How's that for a question?

posted 04-07-2001 07:44 PM            

You answered your own question. You exist on whatever level, or levels, is required to conceive the question to begin with. If you did not exist on that level the question could not have been asked by you.

As to an older question from you, from an e-mail that I did not answer because my pc crashed and I lost everyone's addys, the shoe size is 11 1/2.

posted 04-07-2001 10:42 PM            

We create God as a personification of our confusion. Our desire for a beginning and end (creator and keeper of Heaven's gates). Mother Earth, Judeo-Christian creator, etc. can be created without existing.

We can create mythology without Zeus existing. Same with Santa Claus and Adam and Eve.

From the mythology we can evolve our thinking to what it is.

There are things that I cannot create in my mind without it existing. Usually visuals. I cannot create a different color. But I can imagine an alternate shade of blue, let's say.

posted 04-07-2001 10:49 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trawma:
Ah, you've come at this from a different angle, asked a different question. Not "does god exist," but rather, "do you recognize or accept the concept of a god?" Whole 'nother ball game. We can conceive of many things--not all of them exist in our concrete world. They don't need to, so long as they interest and entertain us, right? One needn't accept the truth of a concept in order to acknowledge its existence. Not the existence of the thing conceived of, mind you, but the existence of the concept.

Right?

Kris

---

On a second read, I must say...

Here Here!

or is it...

Hear Hear!

posted 04-07-2001 11:00 PM            

Yet, the colors he can not see still exist. He knows they are out there in the world even though his eye can not distinguish them.

Don't know if this means anything, but it is interesting.

posted 04-07-2001 11:57 PM            

If YOU were to use YOUR power to punish YOUR own children for all eternity...

Well, among other things, I would have to call YOU a cruel, sadistic SON OF A BITCH...

And being such a BASTARD I would hardly be inclined to want to recognize YOU as my own FATHER.

I have a daughter who I love more than anything and I could never do such a cruel thing to her, no matter what she did while living on this earth. I fully expect whomever I would call my own FATHER to have the same, if not more, compassion.

THE POINT:

You can see why I have issues with the holy-roller, all-accepting, all-condemming Christian (and Jewish) mentality towards 'hard love'. You can have this GOD. I'll take my chances on my own perceptions.

posted 04-08-2001 12:41 AM            

But a major difference between the belief of deitys in pre-historic Tonga, Wells, Greenland, etc. and the early Middle Eastern beliefs in the pre-Christian concept is the pure severity of the wrath of the God embraced by the pre-Christian (and Jewish) people of the Middle East.

The God of the Christian Old Testament (and the same Jewish God) was a cruel, sadistic son of a bitch.

posted 04-08-2001 01:42 AM            

I am a simple man, peaceful, loving to my wife and children, faithful to my community. I do my best to tell the truth and act honorably in my business affairs. But all around me i see selfishness, and evil schemes. A powerful man came into my home, raped my wife and carried away my children. He stole all my possesions and did the same to my neighbors. He enslaved my sons and put my women in brothels. He keeps me as an ornament for torture in his playground of amusment.

But I've heard of a prophet who says that God is angry at the crimes this man has committed. I'm glad God is angry. Someone should be. I am powerless to take revenge. But I have faith that God is not.

posted 04-08-2001 03:23 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ARTRA:
Trawma, you got it, kiddo! I'm in love. Hope you're a woman.

If it is perceived it exists, be it God or dog.

So, try this factor:

If we could erase a recorded history, say the existance of a war called World War II, from our minds, erase all traces of it from our history books, erase it from the minds of those old enough (and still living) to have lived through it...would this erased history still exist?

How's that for a question?

---

If a koan is altered enough, would it ultimately make sense.

As for your question, does your scenario include debris of such things as machine gun cartridges, tank plating, turbo-prop engines etc. from the War? Or not. In other words, the Hittite Empire was lost from recorded history until the discovery of relics of its civilization only fairly recently. Until then, so-called 'experts' debunked the mention of the Hittite Empire mentioned in the Bible as myth. The relics proved the civilization's existence.