Agnoticism: The truthful standpoint on God

eastern religion FTW

A word for you to ponder, my friend: Anthropomorphism.

Well first of all, the so called "evidence" that you speak of is intangible and anecdotal evidence. Howerver; even though that is true, it is irrelevant to "ME". For me I do not care what someone claims to have had happen to them at a moment in the past. It does not make the experience actually true. There could be explanations for them. What would concern me is that I personally do NOT have those experiences and that is what IS required. If a person is convinced through anecdotal evidence then they really have nothing to base anything on. It's believing a ghost story for no good reason other than becuse you WANT to.



Not exactly. This statement you made here is such an overexhagerated generalization it couldn't be more inaccurate. There has been research done on these writings and as it turns out there are examples where the writer is not a person with first hand experience but is actually recounting someone else's told experience. But even if I were to grant the idea that it was first hand experience, it still is irrelevant to "me".



Another over exhagerated generalization that is inaccurate. It is NOT the ONLY progam that has ever worked. There are plenty of other ways that have worked. Besides that, the reason there is religion in 12 step programs is because it is another attempt by theists to project their theology into peoples lives to dictate to them how to behave. They don't really care about helping the person, they just want to impose their theology onto them. The actual track record success for a 12 step program vs another is identical. This means that you really don't have success when you bring theology into the picture, it is irrelevant, a user will quit when they find their own personal reasoning to quit and has nothing to do with imposing a god into their lives making them quit.



Yeah just more over generalization and quite inaccurate.



Yeah the old teastement is such a thorn in the side of most christians and theists. Because it points out something fundamental that they simply can not accept. So they reject the O.T. which is funny to me because without the O.T. you really have nothing at all.



So you will say the O.T. was men, but can't concieve of the idea that the N.T. could also just be men? A bit irrational of a conclusion.



Well not everyone thinks eye for an eye. I sure as hell don't.



I think the only chance the world will have at peace and harmony is when all theology takes the same shelf as mithology.



Some times. I don't think it is this simple. Sure a belief could influence or dictate a way of behaving but does that mean they are behaving that way because they view it right, or wrong, or for some other motive? Some people don't kill because they don't want to go to jail for the crime, but if the crime were lifted they would be out killing shamlessly. While others even if you lifted the threat of punishment from the crime, they still would not commit the crime because they view it as wrong for other reasons than simply threat of punishment.



Id say these teachings are empty one sided opinions that are not completely based in reality to promote ideas that are not truths.

Krumple wrote: "Well first of all, the so called "evidence" that you speak of is intangible and anecdotal evidence. Howerver; even though that is true, it is irrelevant to "ME". For me I do not care what someone claims to have had happen to them at a moment in the past. It does not make the experience actually true. There could be explanations for them. What would concern me is that I personally do NOT have those experiences and that is what IS required. "

I once heard a muslim explain his belief in God. He said he believed in God because he felt God's presence within himself. Probably one of the best explanation I've heard for the question, why do you believe?.

My sister and I were talking about death. It interests me how alike the experiences of people who have had near death experiences are. Could this similarity, even though every person is different, be proof the afterlife exists? I saw a program about this and a doctor said that this was actually an illusion of the brain that people have- not uncommon. Yet I remember seeing a TV talkshow where a woman was talking about when her mother was dying. Just before she died she told her daughter that she had to find her child. The daughter reminded her mother that her child had died at birth. No, he didn't said the mother. The daughter had been married to an abusive husband. Turns out he took the child away when it was born and told his wife her child was dead. Years went by. She believed what her husband had told her, right up until her mother told her that her child was alive. She later found her child. I believe the bible says that we know but a little in this world. We will receive understanding for it all when we go to heaven. Could it be as the mother was passing over she learned of this truth? My sister then told me of a little boy who"died". He told his parents he had met Jesus. Then he shocked his parents when he told them he had a sister. The sister had died at birth. They had never told him about that. The little boy told his parents he knew this because he had met his sister in heaven.
Something beyond this world, something overheard? What to believe? I believe.

URL: http://able2know.org/reply/post-4936295

Sure, that works for THAT guy. I am not that guy. I do not have those same experiences. So I must ask, why is it that he has those experiences, and I don't? There can only be a finiate amount of possibilities or ways to answer that question. The problem is, the majority of those possible reasons point to the fact that he is mistaken or WANTs to feel that way and mistakes it for a feeling or presence of a god. In other words, he is in love with the concept and that results in some chemical response in his brain, probably dopamine which causes him to become addicted to the idea. Now he believes it is real based on this reaction.



These experiences might be similar because the brain might go through similar stages as the person is dying. We are not certain that these expriences arn't the result of chemical imbalances or a lack of them which results in hallucinations. We know for a fact that even when people are not dying they can have strange expriences when the brain is not functioning normally or in the way that it would be under certain conditions.

It isn't that I don't want to believe there is an after life, because there could be, however; my point is that if there is such an existence then there are consequences to how that existence functions.

For example, why would you exist for ever after this life ends? Seems odd yet people just brush that off as if it makes absolute sense. I say no, how could you exist for eternity? In this life we require energy to function. We get this energy from food. Yet in the after life do we require food? If we don't consume this food, do we die? Well if we died in the after life wouldn't that contradict it being eternal? So the only explanation would be that you don't die and don't require energy.

How can something function without energy? Everything we know requires energy, so you mean to tell me that the after life is absolutely 100% different than this existence? If that is the case then your after life would also be 100% which means you personally would be 100% different. If you are that different then how could you be the same person? You wouldn't be the same person. You wouldn't even be a speck of the person you were once. So how can that be an after life? Yet this is another thing that people just sweep under the rug as if it is meaningless or unnecessary to consider.



Once again this is anecdotal evidence. There are just too many factors at work here. When a person is dying, loved ones around them tend to be in extreme emotional states and these states tend to bend and warp experiences. They read into experiences more than what is actually there because they are morning their future loss. All sorts of things can play out in these times and are unreliable. There are just WAY to many explanations for what happened here.

For example the mother might have known secretly what happened to this child or suspected something happened because of how people like her husband reacted to her. When people lie they have tells and generally people close to them will figure out these signs. So while she was dying she had no inhibitions and was more open to the idea. It wasn't that she was getting some cosmic information about what really happened yet it was experienced that way as if she was. The daughter warped the explanation into something more than it was.



It is possible but I doubt that is what happened. Just like I explained above. The daughter warped the experience. I bet the mother was talking with her and was thinking about this child who she thought died and who she believed she would see again when she dies. But she probably suspected that the child had not died and this is what she told her daughter about and the daughter bent the explanation later. This is far more likely the case and has been proven to be the case in situations where people are highly charged with emotions.



This story above has been debunked. The son had been taught by the parents to say these things. In other interviews the kid was seen to be confused at certain points and then the parents step in trying to be sneaky about it to get him back on track. These parents were trying to promote their theology using their child to lie about an experience that did happen to them but to make it out to be something more than it was. It is known that they lied about this because they were in need of money and it generated funds for them to do these interviews.

The son of man can prove to you there is a God and that the Lord is God alone. Join with the son of man and revere the Lord, then you will stand in the counsel of the Lord to see Him and to hear His words because the son of man heeds the words of the Lord and proclaims them.

Scripture has it;"Who has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see Him and to hear His words? Who has heeded His words so as to announce them?"

The son of man comes eating and drinking but people think he is madd or on crack because their deeds are wicked. I am son of man. I am the light of the world no one who follows me will ever walk in darkness because they will possess the light of life.

I think you have a really good point. It really depends upon whether truth is a matter of knowledge or of faith. Right?
It seems to me that knowledge itself is premised on faith. My point of view is that most of what we accept as empirical knowledge probably requires some type degree of faith. Granted, it does take a bit of careful examination of thought process to take the things that we all agree upon and trace it back to faith, however it is possible. In most cases, we at least require a degree of faith in our own abilities to reason. Paradoxically many religious texts seem to suggest that even our own ability to reason is not something we should take for granted.