God does exist...

by czarofmischief 348 Replies latest jw friends

rem

Czar,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll fight the urge to critically examine your post line by line and instead just say one thing that became apparent to me from reading it:

You don't give yourself near enough credit, man. Seriously. Think about it.

rem
SixofNine

At least some elders talk to others with respect.
But seldom with blunt, straightforward honesty. Respect? I don't have even a sliver of respect for a personal doctrine that gives god credit for lovingly giving starving children the "ability to die", while so magnanamously solving Czar's interpersonal relationships with his comedy troupe. Screw that.
bebu

God is a person, I believe, precisely because he is so unpredictable. You can't pray for something and guarantee that you'll get it, nor could you ask your dad for something and get it all the time.
I agree with you, Czar. What is often hard to see is God's overall intentions and motives, if He is a person. He appears whimsical to us, as we can hardly trace what He's up to. But with such a complex world it should really not surprise us.
We want to "know" God scientifically, but God refuses that ground. It's safer for us, but it is not the spiritual fulfillment we need.. God refuses to be our "object". I have prayed thousands of times in my life, but the times I realized (with a shock) that I really connected with God--not just because there was an answer, but because I was allowed to recognize that He was really reaching back to me--are the ones that galvanized a foundation in my life: God exists, and God is person who is good.
To experience God is enough proof for the individual. If it changes your life it will certainly affect the world as well--even the underprivileged and suffering, imho. Schools, orphanages, hospitals, and international development strategies are brought into existence on the whole by people whose sense of love and hope have been stirred. God must stir us first individually. If we are motivated by guilt (not love) we cannot produce lasting results; we get bitter and jaded.
Thru helping us first know that we are loved, and then spurring us to love others, God has His cake and eats it, too.
bebu
bisous

Czar...
I don't believe God is a person nor do I believe that individual prayers are answered.
I do believe in a spiritual force that through meditation we can tap into for strength and development of purposeful action. For me, that is the closest thing to what I would call prayer.
My impression of your beliefs as stated is they are structured around a more biblical approach and wouldn't be right for me.
funkyderek

czarofmischief,
Unlike rem, I won't fight the urge, but please don't take offence at anything I say here. It's not meant as a personal attack.
I was asked to provide proof that God existed - and I refused, for the stated reason that there is no proof that cannot be dismissed by people unwilling to believe.
That's true of everything, but only in a trivial sense. I doubt you'd accept that as a defence from someone who (for example) claimed to have been abducted by aliens, so I hope you understand why it seems like a weak excuse. I'm glad you've decided to ditch it and provide the evidence to be tested.
Dr. Watson made a good point when he said that there was a need for extraordinary proof that God exists. The claim, he said, was extraordinary and the burden of proof rested on the believer.
A very good point, and worth repeating.
But rather than say what I don't believe, I would rather tell you what I know to be true. After all, I could be wrong about many of the things I don't believe, but what I know is this.
Claiming to know something rather than just believe it means nothing, even if you type it in bold print. But on to your alleged proof.
Well, if God is personal, then he is acting in the best interests of those individuals that respond to his guidance.
That seems to be a reasonable premise. A god worthy of the title would have our best interests at heart.
If he created all things, then his influence in the universe would be invisible, undetectable, except for the manipulation of coincidence.
I don't see why. You've just claimed he's a personal god. Why would he not deal personally and directly with us, rather than by the "manipulation of coincidence"? How can one tell a manipulated coincidence from a regular one?
He has friends among humans, just like anybody else, and people that he cares for more actively than the ones that refuse to get to know him. Since he exists outside of time, what may seem like indifference on his part is actually calculated inaction designed to draw out the best in the most people over the long term.
This seems to be just describing the particular god you believe in, rather than forming any part of an argument.
Therefore, the only way to tell if prayer works is to use it and then see if your life improves over the long term.
That seems reasonable, but how would you identify false positives or false negatives. If a person prays regularly and his life improves, how do we know it was a result of prayer? What if an atheist seems to have a better life? If a person prays but receives no apparent benefit, does that mean there is no god or simply that answering certain people's prayers would be bad for your god's overall plan?
Examples from my own life, and this is the part I've been skirting from sheer personal fear of persecution, are varied.
I hope you won't consider my criticism to be persecution. I understand that it's difficult to have your beliefs challenged, but it's better than believing something that isn't true.
Your story as I see it can be summed up as follows:
You found JWD and discovered the truth about the WTS. You faced a humiliating judicial committee but became a better person as a result. You went bankrupt but got a good lawyer. You lost your car but no longer had to pay for it. Your comedy troupe collapsed which caused your wife to become depressed. Eventually she went to the doctor and was prescibed suitable medication. Her employers offered her a perk, which combined with the medication, has improved her quality of life.
But your description goes more like this:
You found JWD (thanks to prayer) and discovered the truth about the WTS (thanks to prayer). You faced a humiliating judicial committee but became a better person as a result (thanks to prayer). You went bankrupt (thanks to prayer) but got a good lawyer (thanks to prayer). You lost your car but no longer had to pay for it (thanks to prayer). Your comedy troupe collapsed (thanks to prayer) which caused your wife to become depressed. Eventually she went to the doctor and was prescibed suitable medication (thanks to prayer). Her employers offered her a perk (thanks to prayer), which combined with the medication, has improved her quality of life.
Your story is essentially a list of things that happened to you, with you choosing to describe all the good things as answers to prayers, mostly ones that you didn't ask. I really don't see how you can expect anybody to take that as proof of anything. Don't get me wrong: I'm very happy that things have worked out well for you, but I don't even see anything in your story that qualifies as a coincidence, let alone one that would have to be manipulated by an invisible god.
czarofmischief

I never expected it to prove anything to anybody else.
Funkyderek,
I hope you won't consider my criticism to be persecution. I understand that it's difficult to have your beliefs challenged, but it's better than believing something that isn't true.
Persecution? After being pissed on in the locker room in high school for being a JW, a debate and discussion forum hardly can do anything. After having a gym of several hundred students chanting "Jehovah, Jehovah" at me, the combined assault of logans and 6of9's formidable intellectual arguments barely even qualify as a mild itch, let alone anything resembling persecution. This is a debate and discussion forum, and I wouldn't have thrown this out there if I didn't want to provoke debate and discussion. I just hope you will listen at least a little to what I have to say.
You asked about how I can tell if the influence of God would be detectable:
I don't see why. You've just claimed he's a personal god. Why would he not deal personally and directly with us, rather than by the "manipulation of coincidence"? How can one tell a manipulated coincidence from a regular one?
Timing. There are natural reasons for a man to have dream about a flood, and wake up with a desire to build an ark and put all of his livestock on it. We would call it schizophrenia or something similar. But if it just coincidentally happened to a man just before a massive flood (another natural phenomena) wouldn't that qualify as a miracle?
The reasoning behind my thoughts are this: God created all things including the natural laws we see around us. Imagine him as an artisan in a huge workshop. Therefore, rather than fashion a new tool every time he wanted to do something, wouldn't it make sense just to use the tools he already has lying around? Especially if he was constantly tinkering? But to those of us inside the universe, it would merely appear as though the tools we lived among every day were just moving around like they always do.
ah, 6of9, your borgified mind is trembling with post-adolescent moral indignation:
But seldom with blunt, straightforward honesty. Respect? I don't have even a sliver of respect for a personal doctrine that gives god credit for lovingly giving starving children the "ability to die", while so magnanamously solving Czar's interpersonal relationships with his comedy troupe. Screw that.
The ability to die was just one example of how God might choose to help. I also indicated that revolution might be helpful, or international intervention, or even just the courage to keep trying. Since we all have to die someday, maybe you should rethink your perspective on being able to face it bravely. It would come in handy on that day when YOU die.
That seems reasonable, but how would you identify false positives or false negatives. If a person prays regularly and his life improves, how do we know it was a result of prayer? What if an atheist seems to have a better life? If a person prays but receives no apparent benefit, does that mean there is no god or simply that answering certain people's prayers would be bad for your god's overall plan?
I have never had a completely negative response. Nor do I really think that it is just meditation, I get a definite sense of personality. You are throwing out completely hypothetical situations, "What if an atheist..." This is a personal God, therefore if you are going to talk about an atheist, you'd better talk about a real atheist. Examples, not hypotheticals, please. I've had the courage to throw my personal life out there for review. Why not toss out yours? Show me an atheist who is happier than I am. Show me someone who prays the way I do and receives no benefit.
Tell you what, I won't consider this as any kind of persecution, if you will do me the favor of not considering this as an arrogance on my part. I don't mean any disrespect to anyone, but I've been called arrogant about this before and it annoys me.
Logan, I actually like you man, I just wish you were a better debater, instead of just a master debater...
CZAR
SixofNine

God is Good
After just two hours of deliberation the jury ruled that the mother was indeed complicit in her child's violent death. This was not just because of her passive role in allowing the battery to continue, but also because she made every effort to conceal the child's injuries, which included a loss of sight due to countless blows to the head.
The little boy was found dead in his mother's apartment in Horsens last summer. A post mortem revealed that the child had died as a result of repeated blows to the head over an extended period of time, causing a build up of fluid on the brain. State pathologists also found over 60 lesions on the child's body as well as three broken ribs and bleeding in the liver.
Both adults were also found guilty of abandonment after it was discovered that they had left the critically injured Kasper helpless and alone, having neglected to call for medical assistance.
God is Great
The three-year-old pictures of Randal Dooley's battered, bony frame lying on a gleaming steel autopsy table provoked little response from the accused couple as they were entered into evidence.

Naked but for a bracelet lashing his wrist to the table, Dooley's body bore the earmarks of a difficult life and a cruel, brutal death: welts and bruises on his face and back, his arms little more than skin and bone.

"He didn't really seem like he was happy like everybody else," 16-year-old Jermaine Copeland testified as he recalled seeing Dooley at a local swimming pool in August 1998, six weeks before he died.

When Dooley took off his shirt, Copeland said he could see the bruises, cuts and welts, which he chalked up to the antics of a growing boy.

But there was something else, he said.

"You could tell he was emotionally hurt (by) the expression on his face," Copeland told prosecutor Rita Zaied.

"You could tell, like, he was sad."

An autopsy revealed Randal died of a brain injury, although he suffered four of them, as well as a lacerated liver and 14 fractured ribs. One of his missing teeth was later found in his stomach.

Both Tony Dooley, 36, and Randal's 32-year-old stepmother Marcia have pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder.

Court has already been told that Marcia Dooley broke Randal's arm and even forced him to eat his vomit because she didn't want food going to waste. Witnesses have testified Randal was unable to keep food down or control his bodily functions in the final months of his life.
God lower Czarofmischief's interest rate
But neighbors say that at times, they heard things that may have been clues to turmoil raging inside the unit where authorities say 3-month-old Tyreona Mabry endured the unthinkable.
"Some nights you could hear despair in the baby's cries," said Liliana Matta, 32, who shared a thin wall with Tameika Hampton, 20, and Tremaine Mabry, 21. Authorities say the couple systematically tortured Tyreona, who died Monday morning.
When examining the baby's broken body after she died at Doctors Hospital, investigators discovered a staggering array of both fresh and older injuries. The girl had about 40 rib fractures, a bruised chin, brain and eye bleeding, a bruised liver, a fractured back, up to 15 chest contusions and three leg fractures.
Officials called the case one of the worst they've seen. But despite the level of brutality, authorities say that no one alleged any abuse before Monday. The family's Child Protective Services record was clean.
LittleToe

Timing is the key.
How many "coincidences" does it take before someone believes?
I guess that's in the heart of the individual.
And as for the sense of personality - that's genuine.
To be honest, there's little other way of expressing it.
LittleToe

Six:
You've proved nothing other than the fact that sh*t happens in the world, and man is often at the heart of it.
There are many emotive examples you can choose, but to "use" the example of children in this way is crass, IMHO.
Assuming "God" exists, do you blame "Him" for what happened in that case (by omission)?
That's low.
You'd give even the lowest human (if there were such a thing) the opportunity to be declared innocent until proven guilty. Yet because of assumptions that you've made about who God must be (if He exists) and how He must act (if He exists), you believe He is inhumane.
It seems there are plenty of assumptions made about what God can or should do. Nice box you've pout Him in...
Since believers are generally happy with what they get out of the arrangement, why rain on their parade?
rem

You know what would convince me that there was some god out there looking over us? If we had *less* free-will.

Of course we don't have complete free-will right now. I can't bend my elbow backwards just by willing it - I am limited. Same with gravity limiting my free will to fly without specialized machinery.

Now if we had the ability to throw rocks off cliffs, but not fellow human beings, that would be interesting to me. If I could smash a watermellon with a hammer, but my free will was restricted in the sense that I could not harm a human with it, then that would tell me that there was some other force out there looking over us making sure that we could not do evil deeds. I'm sure I would love such a god just as much as believers love their god today with all of the cognitive dissonance involved.

As far as coincidence is concerned, studies have shown that believers tend to have a skewed sense of probability. Non-believers usually have a better idea of how probable an extraordinary event really is, so we don't really get too worked up about them. Also, there is a lot of selective recollection going on here. Believers are remembering hits and forgetting misses when it comes to prayers answered. It's all well understood psychology.

The thing that worries me the most is the clinging to unfalsifiable theories: If good things happen after a prayer - it's proof that god has answered it. If not, then god gave a negative answer. Unfortunately there is no way to test such an unfalsifiable theory... and we should all know by now that unfalsifiable theories are, at best, useless and most often just plain wrong.

rem

God does exist...

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