Belief in God

[Darkover]

Free will is a fiction.

you have choice you can choose whether or not to have a cup of tea or coffe, although alot of what we decided is determistic based on what the brain as learned

According to who? Just interested.

it's logical thinking how can anything exist without taken up some space

 

[wildflowers1996]

nothing can exist without taken up some space also without time there is no future present or past

I think things can exist without taking up space - experiences
the experience of consciousness, emotions, pain

you have choice you can choose whether or not to have a cup of tea or coffe, although alot of what we decided is determistic based on what the brain as learned

it's logical thinking how can anything exist without taken up some space

if you are defining free will as "the ability to choose otherwise in the same situation" I don't believe in it; I think everything is determined by genetics/environment UNLESS free will is something intangible, which exists in a spiritual sense

 

[Darkover]

I think things can exist without taking up space - experiences
the experience of consciousness, emotions, pain

the brain creates consicousness and that take up space nothing can exist without taking up some space

 

[tiger b]

it's logical thinking how can anything exist without taken up some space

Depends by what you define as existing and not. We've only five senses to process that by, simply speaking.

A VR game needs apparatus to run it and programming behind it. Nothing in the games it might run exists. The point of the game is to give us a fake reality and to believe they exist.

the brain creates consicousness and that take up space nothing can exist without taking up some space

Does it? It might or might not, yet no concrete scientific proof exists for the brain creating consciousness. It may well be found one day. Then, it depends what consciousness is defined as, and by who.

 

[wildflowers1996]

the brain creates consicousness and that take up space nothing can exist without taking up some space

the brain might create consciousness but I don't think brain activity and consciousness can be said to be exactly the same thing - your experience of consciousness is not the same thing as brain activity

 

[Dying Knight]

you have choice you can choose whether or not to have a cup of tea or coffe, although alot of what we decided is determistic based on what the brain as learned

I think that all events happening in the world, including my own decisions in particular, are pre-determined by fate that obeys some physical laws. All events which we regard as past, present, or future are equally real. Our consciousness may make us feel like there exists some special present time which is more real than other moments of time, but this is just an illusion.

nothing can exist without taking up some space

What is space? Does it exist? If it exists, should it also take up some space?

yet no concrete scientific proof exists for the brain creating consciousness.

Proof is a rather subjective category, since almost any evidence may be rejected as unreliable. Based on my scientific knowledge, I'd conclude that the odds that consciousness is created by brain are nearly 100%.

 

[tiger b]

Proof is a rather subjective category, since almost any evidence may be rejected as unreliable.

I totally agree.

Based on my scientific knowledge, I'd conclude that the odds that consciousness is created by brain are nearly 100%.

I'm sure your scientific knowledge is extensive and impressive. However, the science itself may be somewhat less so. Neuroscience has been promising to answer certain questions conclusively for a very, very long time, with great confidence. Yet despite resources and the finest minds, we don't seem to be that much nearer to this point, and plausible theories not actual still abound. Saying the day will come 'soon' seems to be an act of some faith, and possibly an illusion also.

 

[steppenwolf]

Currently I'm just saying I think there could be a conscious creator - or creators - nothing more than that

And I'm pointing out that your vague idea of a 'creator' cannot ever be proven to exist outside of your imagination, and that in reality all that can be proven is that such ideas have only ever been used historically to tyrannize people. Ergo that is the entire point of them; nothing more than that.

 

[wildflowers1996]

And I'm pointing out that your vague idea of a 'creator' cannot ever be proven to exist outside of your imagination, and that in reality all that can be proven is that such ideas have only ever been used historically to tyrannize people. Ergo that is the entire point of them; nothing more than that.

you may well be right! I know I am very motivated by fear - I'm scared of God, if God exists. That's why I feel the need to know if there is a God. I suppose there's also a wishful thinking element. I want there to be a God who won't hurt me, but will love me, and everyone else. I don't want all this suffering to be for nothing.
I understand that religion can be used to control and manipulate people, and I see wars in the name of religion and I think it's horrific.

I suppose I am very influenced though by how so many people seem so *sure* of their beliefs, that they have experienced God. It's hard for me not to be influenced by it. And even though I know there are alternative explanations, I can see how people see spirituality in things like nature/music. And the big bang and consciousness are such mysteries, they lead me to think there could be a God - even though as you say, there's no proof.

 

[Dying Knight]

I suppose I am very influenced though by how so many people seem so *sure* of their beliefs

Many people just don't have a critical mindset and they are ready to believe in anything whatever others persistently try to put in their mind.

 

[steppenwolf]

you may well be right! I know I am very motivated by fear - I'm scared of God, if God exists. That's why I feel the need to know if there is a God. I suppose there's also a wishful thinking element. I want there to be a God who won't hurt me, but will love me, and everyone else. I don't want all this suffering to be for nothing.
I understand that religion can be used to control and manipulate people, and I see wars in the name of religion and I think it's horrific.

I suppose I am very influenced though by how so many people seem so *sure* of their beliefs, that they have experienced God. It's hard for me not to be influenced by it. And even though I know there are alternative explanations, I can see how people see spirituality in things like nature/music. And the big bang and consciousness are such mysteries, they lead me to think there could be a God - even though as you say, there's no proof.

Why would you fear a loving all-forgiving God? You don't fear God, you fear those who claim to be 'His' agents. Like American armed police. Or Israeli bomber pilots. Or Russian strategic missile forces. All of whom claim God as the ultimate source of their arbitrary authority to commit mass murder in the name of 'freedom' or 'war' or 'justice', the ultimate proof of faith in God being to kill for Him. Those are the people who seem so sure of their beliefs who are really influencing you.

My concern here at SS is that the arbitrary authority of God's agents to inflict violence ends all rational debate, but for the youth debating how best to end themselves humanely. Removing 'God' from the equation removes the source of those agents' long-established authority and exposes them to the youth for what they really are: charlatans and warmongers who are not going to be around forever.

The Big Bang and consciousness are only mysteries to those whose perspective has been obscured. As realities they are self-evident. The spectacle of the cosmos, honeycombing space in vast chains and walls of galaxy superclusters with the abysses that separate them, to the limits of all human craft to detect them and beyond, the innumerable variety of star systems and worlds contained therein, all evolving under the subtle direction of natural laws over æons of time, and in the infinitesimal midst of this apparently infinite wonder, the unique unsurpassed beauty of the planet Terra Mater in all of her benign majesty, apparently alone in her profligacy of life, quality tested over hundreds of millions of years, singing into the void music to make stones weep without hope of a reply, and then the race of human beings, passing on survival knowledge seamlessly down the generations, whose environment naturally demands that they co-operate on each other's survival in spite of all differences between them or else perish in apocalypse... all of these things are self-evidently observably real and demand no faith, and no proof of faith, only witness and acceptance. No human idea of 'God' can ever do justice to the reality, it can only meddle in it and mar it, and blind faith can only obscure and contradict it.