Is there proof God exists?

I do meditate, why did you assume otherwise? Let me say this, it is healthy practice, but to assert "you will know God" seems reckless to me, hence I question. I do experience a peaceful state.

But Is it possible the subconscious state you mention, could be another of your own conditioning? How can you be so sure?

Perhaps the name he gives himself "He who causes to become"

Sorry, I didn't quote your suggestion that a definition of 'God' was lacking

The problem of what is "the void" has to do with the fact that our understanding is with respect to the physical aspect of existence. We cannot conceive of the nature of the non-physical /spiritual/ mental state. So something in the void sounds nonsensical. What word can I use to depict "something" that is not physical. Our words relate to the physical aspects of reality. The void is completely empty with respect to physical things but it is not empty with respect to non-physical "things". It contains all the ideas and conditions that describe all that is, all that has been and all that my be in the future.
As for anaesthesia (and even death I would say) it is not true that nothing is experienced but that nothing is remembered. An orthopedic surgeon (in Florida if I remember rightly) was doing placebo surgery and he played a tape of a surgical procedure to make sure that the person under anaesthesia believed he really was being operated on and not just cut open and sewn up again. He did this because he thought that the person may not have been under anaesthesia sufficiently but even people under light anaesthesia don't remember anything and yet while under light anaesthesia plastic surgeons can ask the anaesthetised patient to move their head and the patient will do so. This means they have to experience something even if only the doctor's voice but they don't remember it afterwards.
In meditation as the ego self is extinguished consciousnesss is expanded and the superconscious state is reached. However this is unlike the limited consciousness of the waking state which dependent on the ego self as the experiencer. I can't describe this to you because no matter what words I use they fall a long way short and no matter what allergy I try to use it is hollow. You want evidence and if you really do want evidence and it is not just a mind game then you will go there yourself. You have to do the experimental work to get results and arrive at the truth! Even here I have to use the word "yourself" for the ego self that is yourself vanishes but there your identity shifts and you realize that only one self exists, one self alone and it is the Universal self.

Thank you.

It is a superconscious state. Meditation is healthy because it bring the body to rest and as you say you find a very peaceful state. This is good but you must go a lot further. I don't know how many hours a day you meditate but you need to do more than two hours aim to do as much as you can. If you are working then it is hard and there are times in our lives when we cannot do formal meditation at all. A way of easily extending the hours is to do all your daily duties with mindfulness so that in effect you meditate as you do your daily chores. And you do best to do frequent meditational retreats. The Tibetan Buddhists have longer retreats a month to six weeks but they are more easy going. The Zen Buddhists do only seven day retreats but they are extremely intensive and a rigid plan is maintained throughout. Some of the Sufi traditions also have good meditational retreats. Find what suits you and what you feel happy in doing.
How can I be so sure! I had studies with Zen masters after my years of yoga came to a close with the passing of my guru. I had been told repeatedly that you have to get your experience confirmed by the master. I never recollected my guru saying anything about that at all. Then when I did a long retreat with a Burmese Buddhist master I made good progress and I was most impressed with him as he was solely interested in seeing his students gain enlightenment, which is really what a master should be all about. Unlike the Zen teacher he kept telling me that he did not need to confirm my progress. I went to see him off at the airport. He was going back to Burma and I was staying in Australia and still concerned I said to him that I could hear what he said but even if it was not necessary would he still confirm my experience. He laughed and said "not necessary, not necessary!" It was some nine years later when I had a profound enlightenment experience and then I realized he was right. It was self evident as night and day. I did not need and I did not feel I needed any confirmation of my experience. It is an unshakable, undenyable, indisputable certainty.
Do everything that you can do and more and go there taste the bliss and live forever!

Indeed many precious things in life are self evident,but so are headaches and delusions. They are undeniable to only those who experience them. Hence it may not be sufficient for "God Proof" to be self evident. The only sure thing for me is that Meditation is a healthy, restful activity.

This question is like holding a bar of wet soap in your hand and trying to squeeze it. Personally I've sought to 'know' the existance of God and been through the gamut of information out there and even practiced meditating in peaceful envrionments to try and find something. But this question only begs the question 'So what if there was a God or not?' I'm at the mercy of 'something' but I find it's not useful to linger on what that 'something' is. Often I have to remind myself about my own journey before I go demanding proof again cos last time I did that, my life wasn't all that great. So what I'm saying is that this question may take you places but you'll never really know the answer, and if your good with not knowing, all the better to you.

People meditate for all sorts of reasons and health and restfulness are sure to be obtained. As for headaches and delusions. Headaches may be difficult to prove to another person, at present! As for delusions there are no such things. A person who is claimed to be delusional is claimed as such for two key reasons. One is certainly to aid the sale of drugs. The other is to cover over the toxic underculture of modern societies, with the Western societies leading in this department. They are two faced and well hidden owing to in my opinion the medical misinformation that is fed to the populus. if they were to do the research instead of double blinding everything and keeping relationship out of the experiments then the foul play that takes place as to serious harrass another human being by a mob becomes obvious.

The Journey to God is not easy and it does put your life upside down. If your personal journey is more important then you are no ready to make the Journey to God. The make the Journey to God you need to be ready and willing to fly into the fire and be consumed for ever more.

You make it sound like you 'know' God personally... Honestly, I don't think my journey is important, it's just a part of something, but sometimes we get caught up wanting some evidence to validate it 'somehow'. Each to their own in that respect, where ever it takes you. All I'm saying is this question is elusive, for anyone can beg an answer to this with seemingly reasonable questions. So when the word 'God' is involved, my position is to be in reverence to all positions yet remain content in not having one, even if it is to merely hear and understand others. And neither is this an atheist view, or agnostic. It's a view from a guy who is at peace.

No one can know God "personally". It's as good as saying that the little character that you use to play a computer game can know you personally. Ha ha ha, ha, ha! If you are at peace with not knowing and you are not an atheist or agnostic then you are no on any quest to find God. One thing is for sure we can have some inkling of God but we can never have intellectual proof. It is a bit like science. You have a hypothesis and then you have to do the experimental work. Only after you get results can you make a theory and finally arrive at the truth. Of course in science everything remains as theories. There are no truths. But in the quest to find God the truth can be found but only after the seeker is extinguished! I can't explain it so that it satisfies your intellect.

I don't want a debate but to merely raise some concerns. 1) How do you not know I've been on a quest all my life? 2) That inkling you mention could be anything, yet is it easier to ascribe that inkling with the term 'God' than let it remain nameless? 3) On the assumption you have experienced something 'spiritual', does this make you an authority to let people know of there own paths?

I do not and cannot know of your path. Everyone has their own path. There are as many paths as there are people on the planet! I only commented that, a I see it, if you are at peace with where you are you are not at this point in time on a quest. It may be that you are taking a break or have to wait for some direction or something to prompt you. And yes it is true that you may still be on a quest and this is just another part of your journey. I do not see myself as an authority because one cannot know another's journey but I believe it is worthwhile to share with others what we have experienced because it may provide the spark they need to gain some insight.

For some reason the question of this thread stuck in my mind.

Here's what I think about it.

God is an idea. It is a concept that we fill with meaning, and then we either embrace or reject that idea. It is either something that is meaningful to us in understanding reality or it is meaningless.
Those who find meaning in it say they believe, while those who cannot relate to it says the opposite.

I have no problem relating to "god" as a term that means a singular force that is the origin of everything. I do, however, have a problem with people who invent rules and beliefs based on their idea and try to enforce them.
I read this somewhere, think it was something someone posted on facebook: "I have no problem with god. It's the fanclub I can't stand."

Yes, regarding the "fan club" the question is what is gained by the personification of such a force other than simple psychological security of "closure". On analysis, such a force looks pretty "mindless" and "wasteful", and the association of "the glow of cosmic harmony" well known to meditators with such a "force" seems at best speculative wish fulfilment. Empathic humane actions require no "guiding force" to facilitate or justify them.

If we think of the term "god" to refer to the here and now, the eternity from which time flows and which can be experienced and perceived but not thought or reasoned, then no, there is no proof of god.

As the late Alan Watts explained, "The eyes cannot see themselves."

In the western world god is separate from man, so god becomes the object of piety, or else human values are stressed--humanism. In the eastern world god is that which can be identified with and directly experienced.

Humanism and god-as an ultimate object of worship-are in conflict with each other, but in the asian context of identification with god, the eternal, the question of god's existence has little or no meaning, and god as separate from and above man is just an alien concept, and the question, "Is there proof God exists?" has no meaning.

I understand the quandary the questioner is in. He was indoctrinated, at least partiallty in the Christian or related religion, and now he is on a spiritual quest--to one extent or another. The problem is not isolated, for it is a critical problem in at least the whole western world. Religious myths and symbols as interpreted literally have been busted by science and education, but no myths have as yet formed as replacements. That's the fault of the churches, and the people are left to their own devices and have to find their own religious way. I think, essentially, that that was what the 60's drug culture was all about, and many people came through that era as changed people, with their new-found personal sense of religious identity.

I take the god concept, whether wrapped in canon or not, to be the "engine room" for the contemplators life story. It does not simply sustain them as a "neutral" being that sidesteps the existential void in itself, it provides a thrust and total sense of purpose/understanding for the phenomena of life. Maybe that distinction is meaningless because it's only through this relationship or that relationship that I come into being. It is inescapably personal. But still, I take a lot more from man's elaborations on god from an artistic perspective than I do from a, let's say, investigative perspective.

I agree with you that empathetic humane actions do not need a guiding force, as in a force from outside but if there is no unity of all, no oneness then there is choice as to whether to be empathetic or not and really whether to be ethical (humane) or not. There is no essential oneness in the belief that there is only the material reality, the view of science despite the evidence they have to the contrary. They claim that something comes from nothing because nothing is unstable (as an explanation of the fact that they see sub-atomic partiicles come in and out of material existence all the time). If we consider that there are two aspect to reality, one is the physical and the other not physical, call it spiritual, metaphysical or whatever. That aspect is a singularity, a "place" common to all. It means that everything in creation bears a fundamental relationship to everything else. It then provides a real basis for ethics. because we necessarily affects all others with each word, thought and deed that we make. This is the basis of being empathetic and not some gene as is being proposed by people such as Dawkins or some brain activity as suggested by the neuroscientists.

Religious myth and symbolism are meant to be metaphors and not to be taken as a literal in themselves. Problem is that Christianity does not hold up under scrutiny so people are trying to make it true by looking for evidence in things that were not historical and never happened because they are only metaphorical. However science is not being done honestly in some important areas so as to give a false picture in some places. And these do relate to the reality of a spiritual/non-physical existence. One key area has to do with ESP. They double blind all experiments. Double blinding means they remove relationship out of the experimental procedure. Relationship is a very important area because when people are related and as a result can address each other mentally we can see ESP spectacularly demonstrated. Another area in science has to do with how subatomic particles behave. It is important to recognize that the experimental results are interpreted, they don't just stand for themselves as facts. And the interpretations that are made, are made on a belief that there is only a physical existence. Scientists are setting themselves up as the new priest hood but when they tell half truths people sense that and mistrust them.
I don't think we need new myths necessariy. We need a new reformation. We need people to realize the non-physical/spiriitual aspect of reality and to move forward from there through direct first hand experience.

You have not answered advantage of the "personification" point. Your concept of "relationship" is anthropomorphic hence your extrapolation to "ethics".
Since a plethora of of what we call "relationships" are non-human, like animals predating on the young of others, I suggest your ethical extrapolation is flawed.