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I have watched some episodes. It's mostly about theology? Or philosophy also? I also feel that you should include muslim theology too as it is the 3rd Ibrahamic monotheistic religion like Christianity and Judaism
Me too, especially the ones focused on theist’s arguments for god’s existence. And when Robert pushes really hard and challenges their justifications for their beliefs
Robert kinda blows my mind with frustration when he saids “ if I had an experience,I wouldn’t trust it.” If you weren’t taking some mind altering drugs, or anything that can cause an illusion, then why not? At least to the point of suspecting or entertaining the possibility it may be real. I think that it can become self sabotaging at a certain point. Take the experience and feeling of being in love, or just love you would have for anyone or anything, it’s an experience we all have experienced. So is he saying in effect his love for his wife or love ones is something he doesn’t trust just because it’s non tangible. In this life we are filled with non-tangible experiences, and to say you don’t trust them because their out of the norm, is kinda limiting the possibilities of possible explanations that just may fit, but unfortunately may be beyond the grasp of scientific explanations. I guess it’s a personal thing, cause personally for me, I would love it, God willing. it would validate an innate suspension I have already. For Robert, it sounds like he would just classify it under wishful thinking cause he has so much fear of deluding himself. Maybe that level of fear completely prevents trusting one self ultimately. Oh the irony! 😊
Robert, Jesus Christ seems to be missing from many of these debates. One of my basic questions when I set out on my journey to find God was wanting a human link between me and God. The reality and truth about a central reality of God's Nature was answered in Jesus Christ,, His life teachings, death on the cross and His resurrection. God's Love is central to this, both in the Old testament narratives and The New testament writings. Start with Loving God which leads on to loving your neighbor as yourself. This is my journey on the road of Faith Hope and love.
Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.
Imagine an invisible ghost who gets mad that nobody can see or perceive him and yet sits there doing nothing to make himself known and expecting people to somehow still come to believe in him
Imagine thinking this and ignoring said God came to humanity in flesh to prove he exists and how to be in communion with him then being murdered for it. Just to have someone on TH-cam claim he is lazy and uncaring
Near Death Experiencers have experienced, seen, and been moved by their encounter with God. At the moment of exposure to God, one gets to know God because at that point in time, one will be downloaded with all the knowledge there is as provided by that source, God. There are millions of people who have had near death experience and have talked about it. Close to Truth seemed to have ignored this phenomenon and preferred to discuss epistimology instead.
We return to knowledge through the purification of perception. This is taught by the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit. His primary means is forgiveness. Once we can perceive a forgiven world, God takes the final step back to Him for us.
Surprised by the lack of push back from RLK in this episode on the claims made from 0:00-14:00. “Observing the effects of god”? I get that they feel like they are the effects of god, but how did they determine that they are? How did they even know it is what god wants? We have writings by men that claim to be from god?
The natural mechanisms in which all living species underlay is the key to understanding the logic of a creation in which all worlds are connected giving a possible answer for the logic of its construction. It doesn't have to fit our logical understanding but that of the creator or creators itself. We place ourselves for our understanding in that special position but its just the natural mechanism that is going on in our world, and the logic of their own in the other worlds that we dont understand but also assume to understand. So its evidently that a creator exist and less believable the stories of him. But nobody knows for sure.
“How can we know God”? We cannot know God in the ultimate sense (as God really is) while we still exist within our physical bodies inside of this universe. Because to know God (as God really is) would be the metaphorical equivalent of knowing our mothers (as they really are/were) while we still existed as fetuses within their wombs. I suggest that in the same way that we needed to be born-out of the amniotic waters of our mother’s womb in order to not only see our mother’s true form, but also the higher context of consciousness and reality in which she exists, likewise, the same applies to our present relationship with God and the transcendent context in which God exists. Simply stated, think of the material universe as being God’s cosmic womb, and the human body as being nothing more than the equivalent of a no longer needed “placenta” that will be discarded at the moment of death. If you take the old Hermetic axiom... “as above, so below” ...and reverse it so that it reads... “as below, so above” ...you will understand how utterly “natural” our relationship to God truly is, in that the “mammalian” feature of conceiving one’s own offspring “within” oneself, extends to the highest level of life and reality. The bottom line is that whatever it is that is born-out of the human body at the moment of death,... (in other words, whatever our ultimate and eternal form actually is) ...it will be the exact same (familial) form as God. We may not be able to directly know God at this present moment. However, as we stand on the earth and look out into the universe, we can at least entertain the possibility that what we are viewing is an aspect of God’s reproductive system as seen from our “fetal” perspective. Now with all of that in mind, from this moment on, every time you see human cemeteries, try to imagine them as being nothing more than “gardens of afterbirth.” _______
Aside from the philosophical musings, one of the most interesting things about this show is actually Lawrence's hair. He has extraordinarily thick, if grey, hair for a man of quite advanced years. It's like Brillo thick. I think there needs to be an episode about Lawrence's hair.
How much free space we would all have in our minds if we simply forget god and all that baggage. I mean, really make it desapear from our horizon of knowledge and reflection
Listening to these people makes me realize how void I am of any need for a god. They are modern day scholastics from the 10th Century who weave together nuances into intricate formulations that have no provable foundation in reality.
God is within you. Just need to make an effort to talk to Her. 1st step to be able to listen to soft whisper of God is to Silence the mind. Yoga is a good tool to calm the mind.
We can only know God by his mercy, and that mercy is transcendental knowledge. Transcendental knowledge is that knowledge that reveals to us the transcendental nature of God being absolute truth by the process of devotional service to God and since that realization is only possible if God presents himself as an object of devotion the knowledge itself is solely an attribute of that supreme being. As Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavid-gita: " That very ancient science of how everything is related to the supreme is today told by me to you because you are my devotee as well as my friend and can therefore understand the transcendental mystery of this science." and he also says, " In this world there is nothing so sublime and pure as transcendental knowledge, such knowledge is the mature fruit of all mysticism. And one who has become accomplished in the practice of devotional service enjoys this knowledge within himself in due course of time." So, it is devotional service to Krishna that purifies us from material contamination. As Krishna says in the gita, " this divine energy of mine, ( material world ) consisting of the three modes of material nature is difficult to overcome but those who have surrender unto me easily cross beyond it." so transcendental knowledge is the knowledge that gives us the means to become pure and since the means is devotional service to Krishna transcendental knowledge and devotional service are all on the absolute platform. So it is only by Krishna's mercy that we can know Krishna ( God ) because it is only through Krishna that we can know Krishna.
there may be two separate issues about meeting with reality: KNOWING and BEING. For instance, one thing is KNOWING 'everything' about science (or cooking, painting, music, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.) and another is BEING a scientist (or a cook, painter, musician, telepathic, clairvoyant, etc.)
The greatest gift a loving god could give us is........our freedom. And so God hides. If God were to reveal himself in instantaneous moment, showing himself as he really is, our freedom would be gone. Our awe and terror would be so great that our freedom would evaporate. After that, we'd have No Choice but to acknowledge God. And so God hides and our freedom is preserved. Maybe that's why the cosmos looks as though it doesn't "need" a god. But God had to hide anyway. If God did not hide, there would be nothing but God.
What??? Your parents just had sex and your mum carried you for nine months, then both parents raised you. That doesn't make them Gods in any which way. They didn't invent mass, matter, energy and universal laws. Neither did your parents invent life itself. They didn't invent biology. After sex they had nothing whatsoever to do with how the sperm and egg united and divided multiple times to become a foetus. Your parents didn't mastermind cell division, how you would be created, what you would look like and how you would be. They just hoped for the best and your mum may have craved certain foods, again all she had to do was keep herself well and eat and drink and rest as best she could till you were born. She was your incubator. She didn't mastermind the creation of you. Your mother had you, but didn't make you. Biology made you. Mother Nature made you not your parents. . Your parents did not create anything about you, except give their genes to the procreation of you. That does not make them Gods, that makes them gene donors. Animals can have sex and procreate. Doesn't make them Gods either. It was God who ultimately created you.
I'm 100% with Robert Kuhn in what he said between 21:35 to 21:52. If there's a God who wants me to believe that he/she/it exists, then the responsibility to make that happen is entirely in God's hands. Period. He/she/it is the only entity who is in a position to make that happen. And far more importantly, IMHO, any theology that claims that a God would hold it against me for something that I clearly am incapable of doing is a theology unworthy of the paper it's written on. This is why I view those types of, what I call, "The Jealous God Religions" (i.e. anything based on the Abrahamic religions) as clearly very poorly constructed and obvious false theologies (or more correctly mythologies). I hold that if there is a God, it must be more along the lines of various Eastern Mystical views, of an entity who really doesn't give a hoot whether we believe God exists or not. As far as I'm concerned that's the only kind of theology that even has a remote chance of possibly being true. In other words, for me, the Abrahamic, Biblical, or Christian theologies are as demonstrably false as the claim that there could be a whole number solution to the square root of 2. I won't claim that there is no "God", but I think there are specific theologies that can indeed be ruled out. And that clearly includes the entire Middle Eastern and Western picture of a jealous God who demands that we believe in him. (i.e. the God of the so-called "Holy Bible"). A necessary work of pure fiction as far as I can see.
Nope, it is not God's entire responsibility. If God gives you SUFFICIENT reasons to believe, then you would have responsibility if you ultimately fail to believe.
@@prime_time_youtube, Well, if there's a God he/she/it has failed to do that. So there you go. So by your own criteria the entire responsibility still belongs to the God.
We can approach truth. If you live by what you believe in your heart to be true, by Dharma, then you have a personal relationship with truth. All else is moot.
In her seminal work, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, showing on an ascending scale, "Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. (SH 298:13-15)
I understand. But remember...religion was imposed upon people. Therefore they got the upperhand and it will take a long time to overcame it with real knowledge. Let them have their fun for now...
It's "his" properties, not her. The ancient Hebrews believed God the Father was the masculine side of God. But they also believed the Holy Spirit was the feminine side of God. So there's 2 persons with one divine essence. Then there was Jesus, God in the flesh, who made up the Trinity.
@@70AD-user45 The term "sons of God" appears eleven times in my Bible. It's not easy to know what it means (see Genesis 6:4). Apparently, the LORD is God and there is nobody else (Deuteronomy 4:39). Just to clarify, the god of Israel tells us "there is no saviour beside me" (Hosea 13:4).
@@70AD-user45 As we all know, many gods and goddesses were (and still are) worshipped in many cultures. I'm sure, if you look hard enough, you could name many hundreds of goddesses. And one or two are probably mentioned in the Bible.
@@70AD-user45 Theology is the "study" of God(s)(ess)(es). It's not science ! I have examined the theology of some ancient and modern people and it seems pretty elastic to me. Basically, you can just make up anything you fancy or just pick one ready made.
@@tedgrant2 I'm Greek so I know about some of the ancient gods. The Hebraic God is the one 3 religions follow today. The ancient Hebrews were good at promoting the idea of God better than the Greeks, Romans ever could.
The term infinite refers to time, so if your outside of time because you created it, then you would be infinite cause time would have no bearing on you. Stands to reason right?
“2: O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice;…” “O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest 4 Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.” “To every discerning and illuminated heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. “No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtle, the All-Perceiving.” - Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 46-47.” To an untrained child , If math exists how does one know for a certainty it does ? A child becomes wise , learns from a teacher . A person , a civilization learns of GOD from the prophets , manifestations , messengers God sends them . Religion is a progressive revelation … the most current is from Adam to Baha’u’llah… “It presents in sententious form the sum and inwardness of all the Revelations of the past. As according to prophecy all the Messengers and Prophets, including the Qá’im, are gathered together beneath the shadow of the sacred standard which the Promised One has raised; so here beneath that standard is gathered their Teaching in its essence. The Hidden Words is not a digest, nor an ordered statement. It is a new creation. It is a distillation of Sacred Fragrances. It is a focus in which all the Great Lights of the past are joined into one Light, and all God’s Yesterdays become Today.”
God exists in those who believe in God So where is this belief come from This is the question. If this belief come from God himself then it will be justice to give it to all humans If it comes from our consciousness then that means that humans consciousness differs from one to another why is that?. If it comes to sustain order and to build ethical system which will help to reserve and develop our humanity then that will mean humanity needs a bigger power in order to implement some kind of a systematic living to avoid chaos. I don't know and I am proud to say that Because the person who activate "I don't know" will always get new answers and that will encourage him/her to ask more questions and that's to me is a healthy cycle.
I think (not sure) that’s the first time that Kuhn said, him, it, or her whilst referring to “God” (whatever that means). It’s always a little troubling and problematic to me that he/him is always used when referring to something like a super-creator (to use a term of the Dalai Lama’s) that no one has any direct knowledge of and when the indirect is often spurious and/or arduously philosophically complex and questionable.
He doesn’t know for a fact he wouldn’t believe a profound experience that provided personal evidence of a spiritual reality transcendent of hardcore materialism..In think he hits the nail o the head…a perfect God/source and varying levels of “less perfect” God experiencing him, her it’s self subjectively in all the limitless permutations of creation…
"How can We Know God?" We can not, but we can pretend. Just use sentences like: "I have a personal relationship with god" and mention the words "personal experience" regularly. You might even believe it after a while, if you repeat it often. It is a well known phenomenon in psychology.
I don’t believe that God is the narcissist described in religion, so I’m not convinced that the Gods are interested in being known because they have so much of their own daily work to do and knowing them will change nothing for us by that alone. So I think what the Gods want is our awareness of and alignment with higher truth. Because through the perception and acceptance of higher truth more mysteries in plain view becomes known. As for God itself, we are gods, with our god powers slowly unfolding. I believe that the main thing that stands in our way of godhood is narcissism.
I'd like to hear this discussion after an experience with magic mushrooms The entire neo-roman religious infrastructure was built upon a conquest done by Constantine while high on enthogenic psilocybin mushrooms. #Conquest
Well, considering that we create the gods and ascribe to them the personalities we choose, if you want to "know your god," just engage in some self-reflection.
Perhaps, not so much a question of bridging a gap as to closing the gap by the merging of mind, where man seeks to understand in the moment, not through the God of religious history, but in the here and now, to be in the moment. It seems the gap has been filled with myth and fanciful imagination where religion has been used for purposes of power, where religious concepts have been corrupted for purposes of manipulation and control, not for purposes of truth and understanding. It is necessary for man to distinguish the difference between religious concepts as an invention of the human mind, as to that which is truly of the mind of God, true to His will and purpose. In order to realise the function of true religion should never be fixed in time, as truth is an ever unfolding process fro moment to moment. Neither should true religion be used for the purposes of the degradation of other people, where the unifying bond of the religious power structure is focused on the person of others for use as a scapegoat, a vehicle for hatred then persecution, as opposed to being focused on the true nature of God as Giver of Life and Creation, a true act of love.
@@steenjrgensen7348 One day, yes but not yet. And it is not necessary to experience death to lack a belief in an afterlife. There is no evidence for God or an afterlife that justifies such a belief. “After all, every mystery ever solved turned out not to be magic.” (Tim Minchin)
We will never move past God without alternatives, this is not a job for epistemology, but it can help in establishing some basic presumptions about the subject. What do we know about godollogy? And how do we know what is not God, because it can't be God? As far we can track archeological remains, we could determine time, place and circumstances where ideas first appeared, together with rest of mysticism and ideology. So epistemology can draw some objective conclusions, we should know what was before. If notions of divine started with attributing natural phenomena to conscious agents, than we should ask why did animals care about those things in a first place. Obviously those people were not animals anymore or they couldn't imagine any intellectual concepts. Let's skip this long and most exciting period and try another important era and ask another question, could people sense divine presence before use of symbols? This is important because symbolic language could emerge precisely from that biological urge, manifested by evolutionary workings of human brain. Human monkey felt something like spirit was somehow manifested and described his sensation with symbols, so experience could be communicated to the rest of tribe or family. Let's skip entire development of language origins and think about how scriptures begin to attribute divine spirits with supernatural properties. I would speculate beginnings were lost in translation, maybe some shaman described how some remarkable creature lifted large stone and his latter readers understood stone was actually large as mountain. This is how stories started to mutate imagination and shape dimension of what is possible. This phenomena lead to examination of present situation, priests asked themselves what are they doing, what is the meaning of all those supernatural occurrences and fanaticism, if they were produced by language or those words were inducing altered states of mind in listeners and readers. In my opinion, this is how religion was shaped into existence, language itself is a religion and a divine miracle, not known before in entire known universe. We are talking about conscious animals at that point, not just biological audiomatrons anymore but new kind of life form, capable of incredible magic and untold miracles. God is a force of nature, is a man and is an idea all at once, it is also a curse and maybe also a dawn of human kind. We simply don't know, it could be a biggest mistake any animal ever come up with in entire course of life on this strange planet or a divine spark that will ignite entire galaxy one day, for the glory of the universe.
How can people know God ? Presupposing a background of biblical knowledge : First by studying His works. The physical matter is composed of trillion trillions of identical particles of just a few kinds -- neutrons protons electrons and some others. Having constant mass and inertia, and a responsiveness to heat and gravity , able in forming bigger entities called atoms. Also different energy forms. The chemical nature of things that result in forming molecules and compounds with release or absorption of energy. The biological nature of the world : having a diversity of living organisms which differ each in its set of chromosomes, how the cell exhibits extremely complicated structure : cell membrane, organelles such as mitochondria, the nucleus, all cooperating amazingly to maintain viability, etc. And studying how the chromosomes unwind itself to replicate with precision. Then the existence fellow human beings around me (human beings made in God's image) displaying to some extent His divine attributes or virtues : showing compassion and executing justice and communicating and studying ideas and possessing some power of execution of will and of creation . Self examination.
if you have a different experience than I of let's say an art work. I have to explain my experience to you. This is most like true. But, that sort insists that both saw the art it and one is explaining to the other why it was and experience. The other observer says, I didn't have an experience. Problem here is both saw the art. Religion says, I have this bridge for sale...
If God decides to tell you mentally or verbally have you experience his reality, and you proceed to constantly question that no matter the amount of attempts or even just one grand occurrence that is super compelling, aren’t you in a self - composed circle of denial? If this happens, then you don’t believe that, if that happens then you don’t believe this. I’ve heard of circular reasoning, but would’nt that be circular denial syndrome? See how far that hamster wheel will get you.😳 all these types of scenarios seem to be insurmountable in of itself to go beyond faith in our limited mental faculty.
It is impossible for a finite being to comprehend an infinite being. Emotional religious feelings are just that - feelings generated in the brain. That doesn't mean that God does not exist. We simply can't prove he does.
Easy. Via complete ego-dissolution and surrender/letting go of oneself to a powerful Entheogen. Except it's not easy, it's absolutely terrifying. If one can allow themselves to go that deep though, all will be revealed in the most impossible, ineffable way. No words, or concepts can possibly touch it. By the time one touches down again though, the doors to eternity have closed once again, and we are back in the drivers seat of a limited, but functioning, human being.
...Learned Gentlemen, please add to the list of various knowledge origins, revelational knowledge. I believe that in many scientific explorations we would also find at the heart, revelational information propelling experimentation to seek concrete conclusions powered by revelational concepts, respectfully, Chuck...captivus brevis...you tube...Blessings...
One fundamental issue seems missing: What is the definition of God? What are God’s attributes and properties? For India there are multiple Gods. The Christian God or Moslem Allah are they the same? God as said in Bible or Koran? Is the Christian and Catholic God identical? An oxymoron is: God cannot be defined. If God can be defined by human perception, human language terms, this is no longer a God. Any how do one distinguish a true God from a fake God or Gods? Unless there is agreement or consensus what we are talking about God, the discussions only create more confusion and would be useless.
@@leolok2632 Right on. Another point too. If God is love and all loving then it would seem logical to assume that it's in his nature to share or give himself to others. Then the next questions very well could be. Has God already revealed himself to us? And if so when, how, etc.? But then it's still an assumption about his character to begin with. This is why it seems that God out of necessity would have to reveal himself. Otherwise I agree with you that we are left to guess.
YOU only know when YOU are conscient. Use your own consciousness. Sting vs Mentor Mentors are a kind of teacher to inject good ideas, to install better performance. The whole idea is trust to reach excellence. Mentoring is a gradual consistent process for training as opposed to a sting for a negative effect. Stings come in one shot of injection, the way a poison from a snake operates. If the poison does work, then the snake can have a meal. If it doesn’t, he will have to wait for another victim. Sometimes, the poison does not work at all, because the victim has already developed immunity. The whole process is not unlike vaccines developed to encounter viruses. The mental ability to confront such negative attacks is your own mind. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words cannot hurt me’. We are lucky creatures to have divine consciousness, to encounter evil intentions. Other animals have to deal with sudden venomous attacks for their lives. May you develop your own power of consciousness to reach your excellence? Love you all, Ali, 18/7/2021
I really don't know why I watch these episodes. These "philosophers" and "theologians" are just so bloated with presuppositions, circularities, tautologies, illogical rationalizations and unfounded assertions.
I like this series because questioning is a great place to start. I do feel like laughing often while listening to all the questions because I know that all these questions have been asked by a human and answered by God Himself (Herself/Itself) in the literature created by the co-authors Neil Donald Walsh and God. I promise you that if you listen (or read) this material
God will be speaking to you personally. I know because a very similar experience happened to me in December 2007. He also made Himself known to me by using me to perform some miracles. The communication God had with Neil (and the rest of us).is titled "Conversations with God" - (part audio version on TH-cam). I would have to write a book to address all the questions raised in the "Closer to Truth" series but I don't have to since God (and Neil) already have in "Conversations with God". If you truly wish to know God (and who you really are) check out this material. I promise you that God Himself is waiting to "talk" to YOU. As He says in the beginning " I talk to EVERYONE all the time. The question is who listens". If we all listen to God we really could have "Heaven on Earth. I am praying for you (and me since there is only the One).
The “ feery of nollidg”. Which god? What god. A serious,serious qwestion. Oh gosh, that god! The wun wot mummy tort us about wen we was young and self important. There you are. See. Cheers Mike
Yes, in ancient times there were many gods, but when they speak of God they are talking about the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God of the Old Covenant world of Israel.
A father wants a son to know him. A writer of a book would want his name on it. Why would "God" our presumed creator make itself so illusive to us it's created? It doesn't make sense.
Man made gods to explain why he is here in this universe. Gods just do everything to satisfy man, but they control him in such a way that man should justify why he created gods. haha.
These folks want there to be a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal being, so they pretend there is one and then they waste their time justifying their own fantasy. It really is a form of mental illness.
really, it's not as reducible as that. if there can be no evidence for god, for instance, then being an atheist or theist wouldn't be warranted but by our own perspective and experience. that is, what we believe is a guess swayed entirely by the bias of experience. the question then, epistemologically, is why ought one believe or doubt. we ought to believe whatever we're compelled to believe in that case ... or so say thinkers like peirce, dretske, peacock, wright, plantinga, goldman, and so on. doubtless, some folks do operate as you're describing but i doubt that describes most people ... i think god-talk is an attempt to describe experience. audi gets that perfectly correct ... practice, commitment, hope ... where believers are or should be responsive to experience in coming to their understandings.
@Cerberus ... sure, it can be all of that. the question though is whether or not the idea of god is invented or is a consequence of experience that needed such an explanation, such a concept. that is, all ideas are from experience ultimately. we might be wrong about different intuitions but we're far better at intuition than reason. it seems that's a consequence of evolution. if the idea of deity arose naturally, it seems fitting to believe unless one doesn't; reasoning about either venting may be logically perfect, so, not very helpful in determining what's true and what's not in terms of the mere question of if there are gods. at least, that's my catch 22. what do you think?
@Cerberus ... personally, i'm apathetic to the whole thing. i see good reasons to ditch the idea and good reasons to explore it. to me, it's like playing myself in chess; the color that wins is whichever i wish. too, i don't think a concept of god can entail complete competency, moral character, or benevolence all at the same time. if genuine evil is the sort that some action cannot possibly add to the betterment of creation and such acts exist, this would create that problem. the rape and torture of children seems to me to be a genuine evil, and so if god is love, personal, caring, and so on, then what those words mean are so foreign to us that we have no business using them, they don't fit. but then again, love might just be the sort of abandonment and lack of intervention where the rain falls on us all. still, the reality of god and what comes out in god-talk are two very different things. i think theism, atheism, and agnosticism might take the question too seriously ... we have no concept of god but ourselves.
@Cerberus ... who said anything about jesus? the question is about deity in general. do they exist? probability relies on priors which means evidence. if there can be no evidence for deity, then there can be no priors for any case for or against. to illustrate: suppose there are two identical universes that only differ in that one has a god and the other doesn't. if you were placed in one of these two, then to what would you appeal to assure yourself of which sort you were in? it would beg the question to say no universe requires gods just as it would to say no universe can exist without god, and, it shows a hidden premise that gods have something to do with the existence of universes and that god's existence makes a causal, phenomenal difference to reality (and this hypothetical doesn't assume any of that). if any argument brought forward that you'd use in this reality cannot solve the question of the hypothetical, then we ought not have confidence in such an argument full stop. we can't talk about the existence of god using probabilities. a.j. ayers makes a good argument having that conclusion as well in "language, truth, and logic".
@Cerberus ... as for jesus or any other sort of god-talk, we can use the philosophical principle of surprise here. that is, we don't ask what's more likely in terms of probability. we suggest that there is certainly one of two or more propositions which would be far less surprising to any perfectly rational person if it turned out to actually be true than false, or far more surprising if it turned out to be false than true. this applies to the sort of abductive arguments god-talk turns out to be. obviously it would be far more surprising for a person to walk on water or be a virgin giving birth to babies or coming back to life after three days, and so on, than to think these things are impossible. in any case, what turns out to be surprising about the existence or non existence of deity cannot itself be settled by such a principle since surprises there aren't set by facts of the matter but by expectation in any case.
@@jordancox8294 , you have to be kidding me. God is THREE persons. One of the "selling" points of the religion is "our PERSONAL relationship" to these three persons.
@Language and Programming Channel , see my other comment to you in another video. You are still doing it. Keep unverifiable philosophy away from me. Your responses to me are obfuscations.
To me, the existence of evil and bad, tells me there's no god or gods. If you are so gullible to believe in religions...be my guest. Just know that someone (human) needs you for some reason.
I'd rather have there be a good reason for the existence of the "bad" (ie. a God created them for a reason), than for there to be no reason at all. People can endure much suffering if they know there's a good reason to. Just imagine how good the reason must be to justify all the horrors of this world. Or assume there's no reason and suffer even more. Your choice.
@@e1ementZero i wouldnt want a hollow or facade as a reason. I would face reality as it is. Bad is bad, good is good. There is no such duality in reality. But we need the duality to navigate the world. God is not a good moral compass (ethics), nor is it a good way to justify and explain things (science). So the use of the concept of God is only for comfort, but if you can find comfort in people, nature and even better yourself (selves). Then God's worth to exist as a concept is none at all. True strength and true wisdom comes from ourselves, others and everything around us, not from a being we do not have proof of or imagine to exist.
Your jumping the gun with your assumptions. Because without God, then you cannot justify the existence of anything as good, or bad. And if you can't objevtivky call anything good, or bad, then you can't suggest the universe wouldn't have it if God existed.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 you do realise good and bad can come from our conscience as social animals. Our innate need to help others and help ourselves. Morals are not objective after all. Ethics is. Universe at large doesnt have good and bad, or else natural disasters and diseases dont befall on good people. If innate goodness is a God given traits, everyone would have it. But as we can see, without free will, everyone's behaviour is either nature or nurture. Born with it or raised with it. If you claim God exist, the burden of proof lies with you to prove it, as well as how goodness, free will, etc all the traits claimed with God's doing should be proven alongside your claims or else itll just be hearsay or a unfalsifiable hypothesis.
@@albert6157 no it can't. Because it can conflict. If one person is thriving in life because they subjugate, or take advantage of others you literally have zero reason to claim they are wrong for doing so. If there's no God, then morals soley come from opinion, therefore they mean nothing. The case for ethics, and morals coming from us being social animals only works in the imaginary world where everyone agrees that helping each other is the best way to make our species succeed. When this is neither how people naturally think, nor is it the truth of the matter. In real life the best, and most efficient way to advance the species is for a hyper elite ruling class to subjigate, and direct the rest of the people, and fir those people to allow said subjugation. It's also very easy to justify killing off sick, or deformed people, as well as the elderly.
You can replace "god" with "the invisible pink unicorn" or "the flying spaghetti monster" in that video, or anything else that does not exist, and it would not change anything about the truth value of the arguments. So, what does that tell you about the reality of god's existence?
@@infiniteepoch8 But the Flying Spaghetti Monster is all powerful! The point is not to imply that the FSM exists. The point is that it doesn't exist. And you can attribute, or "imply", all kinds of attributes to things that don't exist. It's of no difference to what we can say about them. Besides, it is not clear what attributes god has. Every religion defines their own variant of god or gods. Some believe in a personal god, some don't. Some believe god is all-powerful, some interpretations say even god is restricted by logic, and some gods have limited power.
I have noticed that the imaginary god looks just like the god that does not exist. Of course that does not mean anything. After all, imaginary apples look just like apples that don't exist as well. So i guess we are comparing apples to oranges. It's just logic!
@@patmoran5339 Not quite, because ordinary apples do exist in reality. Fatih pulls a different trick: The apple cannot be experienced directly, so there is no way for us mortals to know what it looks like, or if it even has any appearance at all. The imaginary apple is the apple of apples, and all apples have been made in its image. Some say that it is forbidden to make yourself any image of the apple. Still, everyone can know the imaginary apple is real because you can build a personal relationship to it in your heart. For this, it is required to really try believing in the imaginary apple first, and read the scripture that was handed down to us from its perfect non-existence. The scripture is true because in it, the imaginary apple has revealed itself to us. Also, look at all the apples in the world! They bear witness to the imaginary apple. How could something as complex like and apple have arisen without a perfect example? Do you really believe that apples have just evolved out of pure randomness, or could have been conceived by another being? Now that's truly naive! Only a perfect, imaginary apple can be the source of all apples. And if you would have let The Apple into your heart, you would know that. But The Apple is always there, it has planted a seed in your soul. You just need to accept its invitation and let it grow. Why do you still hesitate? The Apple wants to nourish you, and your heart wants to be the soil in which The Apple will grow its roots in. -- See? We define something that cannot be proven or disproven, and with enough vague blah-blah around it, we can cover up the fact that it simply does not exist at all. Watch the video again, and every time they talk about god, imagine they are talking about The Apple, or the invisible pink unicorn, the FSM or The Great Ju-Ju From The Mountain. You will see that nothing, absolutely nothing, about the validity of their arguments changes. And since their arguments can be taken to point to both things that exist and those that do not, none of their arguments can answer the question of wether or not god exists, and what we can know about it. Because their words apply just the same to The Apple, the FSM, etc.
How can we know God? People have been reading about God since monotheism started, first the jews, then christians, and last but not least, the Muslims.
There is no way to know God by philosophy. Indeed there is no human reason to speculate God's reasons or to understand Him. 'You can search for me, but you won't be able to find me' God said.
God's ethics are different from Human ethics. We are only concerned about what belongs to us within our borders - which are man made. The United Kingdom, for example, belongs to the Queen of England.
If I were to believe in god there would be two Explains why life is not entirely hell The evil god would have the upper hand since evil is objectively easier than good explaining the unbalance
@SAMURAI 武士 there isn't such a thing evil objectively, mankind is inherently wicked and aggressive, only cultivation your overriding reason leads to right path...
God is human problem since their consciousness evolving and start questioning to the their source (conscious), so they created the knowledge of god to figure out what they think about and they started connecting their consciouness to the other conscious agents and far more to the super-conscious body that may ruling this all existence.
Yoga says: Your true SELF is God. You just have to drop your chronic thinking 😃 Consciousness is God. Every living being is a reflection of God in an imperfect mirror Read "be as you are" by David Goodman
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I have watched some episodes. It's mostly about theology? Or philosophy also? I also feel that you should include muslim theology too as it is the 3rd Ibrahamic monotheistic religion like Christianity and Judaism
Absolutely remarkable content 👏 👌
Better if the interview is impromptu
I really like the episodes on God !
Me too, especially the ones focused on theist’s arguments for god’s existence. And when Robert pushes really hard and challenges their justifications for their beliefs
Me too
These guys from this episode are some f the best the show has interviwed so far. Great indeed!!!!!
I love Robert's final thoughts at the end
Robert kinda blows my mind with frustration when he saids “ if I had an experience,I wouldn’t trust it.” If you weren’t taking some mind altering drugs, or anything that can cause an illusion, then why not? At least to the point of suspecting or entertaining the possibility it may be real. I think that it can become self sabotaging at a certain point. Take the experience and feeling of being in love, or just love you would have for anyone or anything, it’s an experience we all have experienced. So is he saying in effect his love for his wife or love ones is something he doesn’t trust just because it’s non tangible. In this life we are filled with non-tangible experiences, and to say you don’t trust them because their out of the norm, is kinda limiting the possibilities of possible explanations that just may fit, but unfortunately may be beyond the grasp of scientific explanations. I guess it’s a personal thing, cause personally for me, I would love it, God willing. it would validate an innate suspension I have already. For Robert, it sounds like he would just classify it under wishful thinking cause he has so much fear of deluding himself. Maybe that level of fear completely prevents trusting one self ultimately. Oh the irony! 😊
Robert, Jesus Christ seems to be missing from many of these debates. One of my basic questions when I set out on my journey to find God was wanting a human link between me and God. The reality and truth about a central reality of God's Nature was answered in Jesus Christ,, His life teachings, death on the cross and His resurrection. God's Love is central to this, both in the Old testament narratives and The New testament writings. Start with Loving God which leads on to loving your neighbor as yourself. This is my journey on the road of Faith Hope and love.
Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.
Why do apologists use temporal comparative evidence to ‘prove’ the supernatural?
Imagine an invisible ghost who gets mad that nobody can see or perceive him and yet sits there doing nothing to make himself known and expecting people to somehow still come to believe in him
Imagine thinking this and ignoring said God came to humanity in flesh to prove he exists and how to be in communion with him then being murdered for it. Just to have someone on TH-cam claim he is lazy and uncaring
Nice documentary.
know thyself...
Near Death Experiencers have experienced, seen, and been moved by their encounter with God. At the moment of exposure to God, one gets to know God because at that point in time, one will be downloaded with all the knowledge there is as provided by that source, God. There are millions of people who have had near death experience and have talked about it. Close to Truth seemed to have ignored this phenomenon and preferred to discuss epistimology instead.
We return to knowledge through the purification of perception. This is taught by the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit. His primary means is forgiveness. Once we can perceive a forgiven world, God takes the final step back to Him for us.
Surprised by the lack of push back from RLK in this episode on the claims made from 0:00-14:00. “Observing the effects of god”? I get that they feel like they are the effects of god, but how did they determine that they are? How did they even know it is what god wants? We have writings by men that claim to be from god?
❤ Very good 👍🏼
The “Hound of Heaven” is something I could believe in.
One of my favorite poems...
Go to it professors. I like this stuff. Though a merely casual listen makes it somewhat over my head.
The natural mechanisms in which all living species underlay is the key to understanding the logic of a creation in which all worlds are connected giving a possible answer for the logic of its construction.
It doesn't have to fit our logical understanding but that of the creator or creators itself.
We place ourselves for our understanding in that special position but its just the natural mechanism that is going on in our world, and the logic of their own in the other worlds that we dont understand but also assume to understand.
So its evidently that a creator exist and less believable the stories of him.
But nobody knows for sure.
“How can we know God”?
We cannot know God in the ultimate sense (as God really is) while we still exist within our physical bodies inside of this universe. Because to know God (as God really is) would be the metaphorical equivalent of knowing our mothers (as they really are/were) while we still existed as fetuses within their wombs.
I suggest that in the same way that we needed to be born-out of the amniotic waters of our mother’s womb in order to not only see our mother’s true form, but also the higher context of consciousness and reality in which she exists, likewise, the same applies to our present relationship with God and the transcendent context in which God exists.
Simply stated, think of the material universe as being God’s cosmic womb, and the human body as being nothing more than the equivalent of a no longer needed “placenta” that will be discarded at the moment of death.
If you take the old Hermetic axiom...
“as above, so below”
...and reverse it so that it reads...
“as below, so above”
...you will understand how utterly “natural” our relationship to God truly is, in that the “mammalian” feature of conceiving one’s own offspring “within” oneself, extends to the highest level of life and reality.
The bottom line is that whatever it is that is born-out of the human body at the moment of death,...
(in other words, whatever our ultimate and eternal form actually is)
...it will be the exact same (familial) form as God.
We may not be able to directly know God at this present moment. However, as we stand on the earth and look out into the universe, we can at least entertain the possibility that what we are viewing is an aspect of God’s reproductive system as seen from our “fetal” perspective.
Now with all of that in mind, from this moment on, every time you see human cemeteries, try to imagine them as being nothing more than “gardens of afterbirth.”
_______
Sounds pagan
@@Jamie-Russell-CME
Hi Jamie Russell,
In what way does it sound pagan? Please explain.
@@TheUltimateSeeds images of cultures idols representing the concepts you are describing. But i don't have to see it that way perhaps.
Man you should start you own youtube channel.
The moment he said while we still in our physical body (refering to the self) you know its nonsense
How can we know God?
God is diverse for Love!
Aside from the philosophical musings, one of the most interesting things about this show is actually Lawrence's hair.
He has extraordinarily thick, if grey, hair for a man of quite advanced years.
It's like Brillo thick.
I think there needs to be an episode about Lawrence's hair.
How about this question- Given the fact that there is something, can there ever be nothing?
I like your videos, I think you do a good job
How much free space we would all have in our minds if we simply forget god and all that baggage. I mean, really make it desapear from our horizon of knowledge and reflection
God exist in the mind. We can't find him out of the mind.
Interesting point.
The scholar that looks like Olson Welles makes sense to me.
Listening to these people makes me realize how void I am of any need for a god. They are modern day scholastics from the 10th Century who weave together nuances into intricate formulations that have no provable foundation in reality.
God is within you. Just need to make an effort to talk to Her. 1st step to be able to listen to soft whisper of God is to Silence the mind. Yoga is a good tool to calm the mind.
her, hahahah
We can only know God by his mercy, and that mercy is transcendental knowledge. Transcendental knowledge is that knowledge that reveals to us the transcendental nature of God being absolute truth by the process of devotional service to God and since that realization is only possible if God presents himself as an object of devotion the knowledge itself is solely an attribute of that supreme being. As Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavid-gita: " That very ancient science of how everything is related to the supreme is today told by me to you because you are my devotee as well as my friend and can therefore understand the transcendental mystery of this science." and he also says, " In this world there is nothing so sublime and pure as transcendental knowledge, such knowledge is the mature fruit of all mysticism. And one who has become accomplished in the practice of devotional service enjoys this knowledge within himself in due course of time." So, it is devotional service to Krishna that purifies us from material contamination. As Krishna says in the gita, " this divine energy of mine, ( material world ) consisting of the three modes of material nature is difficult to overcome but those who have surrender unto me easily cross beyond it." so transcendental knowledge is the knowledge that gives us the means to become pure and since the means is devotional service to Krishna transcendental knowledge and devotional service are all on the absolute platform. So it is only by Krishna's mercy that we can know Krishna ( God ) because it is only through Krishna that we can know Krishna.
While knowing is end goal, developing starting point in necessary to investigate.
Необыкновенная передача! Мне очень нравится! Особенно голос ведущего!!!
there may be two separate issues about meeting with reality: KNOWING and BEING. For instance, one thing is KNOWING 'everything' about science (or cooking, painting, music, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.) and another is BEING a scientist (or a cook, painter, musician, telepathic, clairvoyant, etc.)
Know yourself
The greatest gift a loving god could give us is........our freedom. And so God hides. If God were to reveal himself in instantaneous moment, showing himself as he really is, our freedom would be gone. Our awe and terror would be so great that our freedom would evaporate. After that, we'd have No Choice but to acknowledge God. And so God hides and our freedom is preserved. Maybe that's why the cosmos looks as though it doesn't "need" a god. But God had to hide anyway. If God did not hide, there would be nothing but God.
Your mother and father who brought you into this world are your gods, surely? You are the gods to your children, surely. And so on.
What??? Your parents just had sex and your mum carried you for nine months, then both parents raised you. That doesn't make them Gods in any which way. They didn't invent mass, matter, energy and universal laws. Neither did your parents invent life itself. They didn't invent biology. After sex they had nothing whatsoever to do with how the sperm and egg united and divided multiple times to become a foetus. Your parents didn't mastermind cell division, how you would be created, what you would look like and how you would be. They just hoped for the best and your mum may have craved certain foods, again all she had to do was keep herself well and eat and drink and rest as best she could till you were born. She was your incubator. She didn't mastermind the creation of you. Your mother had you, but didn't make you. Biology made you. Mother Nature made you not your parents. . Your parents did not create anything about you, except give their genes to the procreation of you. That does not make them Gods, that makes them gene donors. Animals can have sex and procreate. Doesn't make them Gods either. It was God who ultimately created you.
Yes, only if God wants, purely purety is the key. God is within.
Hmmmm.... i would like to hear more of what Bas Van Fraasen has to say ...
I'm 100% with Robert Kuhn in what he said between 21:35 to 21:52. If there's a God who wants me to believe that he/she/it exists, then the responsibility to make that happen is entirely in God's hands. Period. He/she/it is the only entity who is in a position to make that happen. And far more importantly, IMHO, any theology that claims that a God would hold it against me for something that I clearly am incapable of doing is a theology unworthy of the paper it's written on. This is why I view those types of, what I call, "The Jealous God Religions" (i.e. anything based on the Abrahamic religions) as clearly very poorly constructed and obvious false theologies (or more correctly mythologies).
I hold that if there is a God, it must be more along the lines of various Eastern Mystical views, of an entity who really doesn't give a hoot whether we believe God exists or not. As far as I'm concerned that's the only kind of theology that even has a remote chance of possibly being true. In other words, for me, the Abrahamic, Biblical, or Christian theologies are as demonstrably false as the claim that there could be a whole number solution to the square root of 2. I won't claim that there is no "God", but I think there are specific theologies that can indeed be ruled out. And that clearly includes the entire Middle Eastern and Western picture of a jealous God who demands that we believe in him. (i.e. the God of the so-called "Holy Bible"). A necessary work of pure fiction as far as I can see.
Nope, it is not God's entire responsibility. If God gives you SUFFICIENT reasons to believe, then you would have responsibility if you ultimately fail to believe.
@@prime_time_youtube, Well, if there's a God he/she/it has failed to do that. So there you go. So by your own criteria the entire responsibility still belongs to the God.
@@Mystic0Dreamer The fact that you failed to understand my comment shows how wron you are. Again, sufficiency.
@@prime_time_youtube Get over yourself.
@@Mystic0Dreamer Possibility and sufficiency. That is all.
Is the way of knowing God the same as the way of knowing everything else?
The weather just changed here lol
It would have been interesting to guest a scholar from the islamic world :)
We can approach truth. If you live by what you believe in your heart to be true, by Dharma, then you have a personal relationship with truth. All else is moot.
Have faith in truth, as in the coherence of what is real with all else that is real. Everything that's true is true at once. That should be enough.
In her seminal work, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, showing on an ascending scale, "Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. (SH 298:13-15)
For some people, religion/God lowers the level of anxiety. So, for the foreseeable future, religion will be around. Live and let live.🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
I understand. But remember...religion was imposed upon people. Therefore they got the upperhand and it will take a long time to overcame it with real knowledge. Let them have their fun for now...
19:23 a god who is not perfect is not God. "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect".
God is outside space and time, which makes it very difficult to examine his or her properties.
It's "his" properties, not her. The ancient Hebrews believed God the Father was the masculine side of God. But they also believed the Holy Spirit was the feminine side of God. So there's 2 persons with one divine essence. Then there was Jesus, God in the flesh, who made up the Trinity.
@@70AD-user45
The term "sons of God" appears eleven times in my Bible.
It's not easy to know what it means (see Genesis 6:4).
Apparently, the LORD is God and there is nobody else (Deuteronomy 4:39).
Just to clarify, the god of Israel tells us "there is no saviour beside me" (Hosea 13:4).
@@70AD-user45
As we all know, many gods and goddesses were (and still are) worshipped in many cultures.
I'm sure, if you look hard enough, you could name many hundreds of goddesses.
And one or two are probably mentioned in the Bible.
@@70AD-user45
Theology is the "study" of God(s)(ess)(es). It's not science !
I have examined the theology of some ancient and modern people and it seems pretty elastic to me.
Basically, you can just make up anything you fancy or just pick one ready made.
@@tedgrant2
I'm Greek so I know about some of the ancient gods. The Hebraic God is the one 3 religions follow today. The ancient Hebrews were good at promoting the idea of God better than the Greeks, Romans ever could.
How can we know the creator of reality?
The term infinite refers to time, so if your outside of time because you created it, then you would be infinite cause time would have no bearing on you. Stands to reason right?
“2: O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice;…”
“O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest 4 Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.”
“To every discerning and illuminated heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. “No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtle, the All-Perceiving.” - Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 46-47.”
To an untrained child , If math exists how does one know for a certainty it does ?
A child becomes wise , learns from a teacher .
A person , a civilization learns of GOD from the prophets , manifestations , messengers God sends them .
Religion is a progressive revelation … the most current is from Adam to
Baha’u’llah…
“It presents in sententious form the sum and inwardness of all the Revelations of the past. As according to prophecy all the Messengers and Prophets, including the Qá’im, are gathered together beneath the shadow of the sacred standard which the Promised One has raised; so here beneath that standard is gathered their Teaching in its essence. The Hidden Words is not a digest, nor an ordered statement. It is a new creation. It is a distillation of Sacred Fragrances. It is a focus in which all the Great Lights of the past are joined into one Light, and all God’s Yesterdays become Today.”
Robert being as serious minded as you are, one day you will find "belief..." Thank God you have "HOPE...." BROTHER JAMES 🙏
Only suspicions of gods. Knowing would imply being a god.
God exists in those who believe in God
So where is this belief come from
This is the question.
If this belief come from God himself then it will be justice to give it to all humans
If it comes from our consciousness then that means that humans consciousness differs from one to another why is that?.
If it comes to sustain order and to build ethical system which will help to reserve and develop our humanity then that will mean humanity needs a bigger power in order to implement some kind of a systematic living to avoid chaos.
I don't know and I am proud to say that
Because the person who activate "I don't know" will always get new answers and that will encourage him/her to ask more questions and that's to me is a healthy cycle.
I think (not sure) that’s the first time that Kuhn said, him, it, or her whilst referring to “God” (whatever that means). It’s always a little troubling and problematic to me that he/him is always used when referring to something like a super-creator (to use a term of the Dalai Lama’s) that no one has any direct knowledge of and when the indirect is often spurious and/or arduously philosophically complex and questionable.
He doesn’t know for a fact he wouldn’t believe a profound experience that provided personal evidence of a spiritual reality transcendent of hardcore materialism..In think he hits the nail o the head…a perfect God/source and varying levels of “less perfect” God experiencing him, her it’s self subjectively in all the limitless permutations of creation…
"How can We Know God?"
We can not, but we can pretend.
Just use sentences like: "I have a personal relationship with god" and mention the words "personal experience" regularly.
You might even believe it after a while, if you repeat it often. It is a well known phenomenon in psychology.
I don’t believe that God is the narcissist described in religion, so I’m not convinced that the Gods are interested in being known because they have so much of their own daily work to do and knowing them will change nothing for us by that alone. So I think what the Gods want is our awareness of and alignment with higher truth. Because through the perception and acceptance of higher truth more mysteries in plain view becomes known. As for God itself, we are gods, with our god powers slowly unfolding.
I believe that the main thing that stands in our way of godhood is narcissism.
I'd like to hear this discussion after an experience with magic mushrooms
The entire neo-roman religious infrastructure was built upon a conquest done by Constantine while high on enthogenic psilocybin mushrooms.
#Conquest
Well, considering that we create the gods and ascribe to them the personalities we choose, if you want to "know your god," just engage in some self-reflection.
Perhaps, not so much a question of bridging a gap as to closing the gap by the merging of mind, where man seeks to understand in the moment, not through the God of religious history, but in the here and now, to be in the moment. It seems the gap has been filled with myth and fanciful imagination where religion has been used for purposes of power, where religious concepts have been corrupted for purposes of manipulation and control, not for purposes of truth and understanding. It is necessary for man to distinguish the difference between religious concepts as an invention of the human mind, as to that which is truly of the mind of God, true to His will and purpose. In order to realise the function of true religion should never be fixed in time, as truth is an ever unfolding process fro moment to moment. Neither should true religion be used for the purposes of the degradation of other people, where the unifying bond of the religious power structure is focused on the person of others for use as a scapegoat, a vehicle for hatred then persecution, as opposed to being focused on the true nature of God as Giver of Life and Creation, a true act of love.
Very clever justification for luring yourself from the fear of dying.
Very clever justification for luring yourself from the fear of the last judgement.
Prime Optimus Nope, when you die, you die. That’s it!
@@celeritasc9207 If you did not notice, I am criticizing the low level of the reasoning of the first comment. So, LOL.
@@celeritasc9207 You have try it ???!
@@steenjrgensen7348 One day, yes but not yet. And it is not necessary to experience death to lack a belief in an afterlife. There is no evidence for God or an afterlife that justifies such a belief. “After all, every mystery ever solved turned out not to be magic.” (Tim Minchin)
We will never move past God without alternatives, this is not a job for epistemology, but it can help in establishing some basic presumptions about the subject. What do we know about godollogy? And how do we know what is not God, because it can't be God?
As far we can track archeological remains, we could determine time, place and circumstances where ideas first appeared, together with rest of mysticism and ideology. So epistemology can draw some objective conclusions, we should know what was before. If notions of divine started with attributing natural phenomena to conscious agents, than we should ask why did animals care about those things in a first place. Obviously those people were not animals anymore or they couldn't imagine any intellectual concepts.
Let's skip this long and most exciting period and try another important era and ask another question, could people sense divine presence before use of symbols? This is important because symbolic language could emerge precisely from that biological urge, manifested by evolutionary workings of human brain. Human monkey felt something like spirit was somehow manifested and described his sensation with symbols, so experience could be communicated to the rest of tribe or family.
Let's skip entire development of language origins and think about how scriptures begin to attribute divine spirits with supernatural properties. I would speculate beginnings were lost in translation, maybe some shaman described how some remarkable creature lifted large stone and his latter readers understood stone was actually large as mountain. This is how stories started to mutate imagination and shape dimension of what is possible. This phenomena lead to examination of present situation, priests asked themselves what are they doing, what is the meaning of all those supernatural occurrences and fanaticism, if they were produced by language or those words were inducing altered states of mind in listeners and readers.
In my opinion, this is how religion was shaped into existence, language itself is a religion and a divine miracle, not known before in entire known universe. We are talking about conscious animals at that point, not just biological audiomatrons anymore but new kind of life form, capable of incredible magic and untold miracles. God is a force of nature, is a man and is an idea all at once, it is also a curse and maybe also a dawn of human kind. We simply don't know, it could be a biggest mistake any animal ever come up with in entire course of life on this strange planet or a divine spark that will ignite entire galaxy one day, for the glory of the universe.
How can people know God ? Presupposing a background of biblical knowledge : First by studying His works. The physical matter is composed of trillion trillions of identical particles of just a few kinds -- neutrons protons electrons and some others. Having constant mass and inertia, and a responsiveness to heat and gravity , able in forming bigger entities called atoms. Also different energy forms. The chemical nature of things that result in forming molecules and compounds with release or absorption of energy. The biological nature of the world : having a diversity of living organisms which differ each in its set of chromosomes, how the cell exhibits extremely complicated structure : cell membrane, organelles such as mitochondria, the nucleus, all cooperating amazingly to maintain viability, etc. And studying how the chromosomes unwind itself to replicate with precision. Then the existence fellow human beings around me (human beings made in God's image) displaying to some extent His divine attributes or virtues : showing compassion and executing justice and communicating and studying ideas and possessing some power of execution of will and of creation . Self examination.
if you have a different experience than I of let's say an art work. I have to explain my experience to you. This is most like true. But, that sort insists that both saw the art it and one is explaining to the other why it was and experience. The other observer says, I didn't have an experience. Problem here is both saw the art. Religion says, I have this bridge for sale...
Faith cometh by hearing the word of GOD
If God decides to tell you mentally or verbally have you experience his reality, and you proceed to constantly question that no matter the amount of attempts or even just one grand occurrence that is super compelling, aren’t you in a self - composed circle of denial? If this happens, then you don’t believe that, if that happens then you don’t believe this. I’ve heard of circular reasoning, but would’nt that be circular denial syndrome? See how far that hamster wheel will get you.😳 all these types of scenarios seem to be insurmountable in of itself to go beyond faith in our limited mental faculty.
It is impossible for a finite being to comprehend an infinite being.
Emotional religious feelings are just that - feelings generated in the brain.
That doesn't mean that God does not exist. We simply can't prove he does.
They start with angels then struggle over the number that can dance on the head of a pin.
Easy. Via complete ego-dissolution and surrender/letting go of oneself to a powerful Entheogen. Except it's not easy, it's absolutely terrifying. If one can allow themselves to go that deep though, all will be revealed in the most impossible, ineffable way. No words, or concepts can possibly touch it. By the time one touches down again though, the doors to eternity have closed once again, and we are back in the drivers seat of a limited, but functioning, human being.
Damien Mckinnon someone’s been on L S D recently
@@jean-patrickpelletier4162 Not me... One experience of God was enough.
...Learned Gentlemen, please add to the list of various knowledge origins, revelational knowledge. I believe that in many scientific explorations we would also find at the heart, revelational information propelling experimentation to seek concrete conclusions powered by revelational concepts, respectfully, Chuck...captivus brevis...you tube...Blessings...
that gap is only bridged by divine knowledge through the prophets.....human rationality can only be used to figure out which one
What are we talking about? God has no description!
Exactly! The same description as for everything that does not exist.
@@Madoc_EU What are you talking about? There exist clear theological descriptions. Please do enlighten yourself.
@@MarcusHalberstramVP Which of the ca. 18,000 gods that people believed in at some point in time are you referring to specifically?
One fundamental issue seems missing: What is the definition of God? What are God’s attributes and properties? For India there are multiple Gods. The Christian God or Moslem Allah are they the same? God as said in Bible or Koran? Is the Christian and Catholic God identical? An oxymoron is: God cannot be defined. If God can be defined by human perception, human language terms, this is no longer a God. Any how do one distinguish a true God from a fake God or Gods? Unless there is agreement or consensus what we are talking about God, the discussions only create more confusion and would be useless.
Sounds like it would be pretty useful for God to personally reveal himself to us for us to know who or what he is or is like. Just saying
Well said!
God if he or she or it exists as reality should reveal and tell us so we need not guess, argue, assume, believe or refute.
@@leolok2632 Right on.
Another point too. If God is love and all loving then it would seem logical to assume that it's in his nature to share or give himself to others. Then the next questions very well could be. Has God already revealed himself to us? And if so when, how, etc.?
But then it's still an assumption about his character to begin with. This is why it seems that God out of necessity would have to reveal himself. Otherwise I agree with you that we are left to guess.
YOU only know when YOU are conscient. Use your own consciousness.
Sting vs Mentor
Mentors are a kind of teacher to inject good ideas, to install better performance. The whole idea is trust to reach excellence.
Mentoring is a gradual consistent process for training as opposed to a sting for a negative effect.
Stings come in one shot of injection, the way a poison from a snake operates. If the poison does work, then the snake can have a meal. If it doesn’t, he will have to wait for another victim.
Sometimes, the poison does not work at all, because the victim has already developed immunity. The whole process is not unlike vaccines developed to encounter viruses.
The mental ability to confront such negative attacks is your own mind. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words cannot hurt me’.
We are lucky creatures to have divine consciousness, to encounter evil intentions. Other animals have to deal with sudden venomous attacks for their lives.
May you develop your own power of consciousness to reach your excellence?
Love you all,
Ali, 18/7/2021
From where do you creatures get the idea that there is a "we", let alone go?
I know the God
There is another view point of God existence. If He doesn't exist, both of us will be fine. But if He does exit you will be in big trouble.
You really pulled a pascal's wager aye?
Go Irish! And GOD Country Notre Dame
I really don't know why I watch these episodes. These "philosophers" and "theologians" are just so bloated with presuppositions, circularities, tautologies, illogical rationalizations and unfounded assertions.
I like this series because questioning is a great place to start. I do feel like laughing often while listening to all the questions because I know that all these questions have been asked by a human and answered by God Himself (Herself/Itself) in the literature created by the co-authors Neil Donald Walsh and God. I promise you that if you listen (or read) this material
God will be speaking to you personally. I know because a very similar experience happened to me in December 2007. He also made Himself known to me by using me to perform some miracles. The communication God had with Neil (and the rest of us).is titled "Conversations with God" - (part audio version on TH-cam). I would have to write a book to address all the questions raised in the "Closer to Truth" series but I don't have to since God (and Neil) already have in "Conversations with God". If you truly wish to know God (and who you really are) check out this material. I promise you that God Himself is waiting to "talk" to YOU. As He says in the beginning " I talk to EVERYONE all the time. The question is who listens". If we all listen to God we really could have "Heaven on Earth. I am praying for you (and me since there is only the One).
You can know God but you can’t speak about it, God speaks in silence.
You need to do an episode where you are not wearing high heels.
The “ feery of nollidg”. Which god? What god. A serious,serious qwestion. Oh gosh, that god! The wun wot mummy tort us about wen we was young and self important. There you are. See. Cheers Mike
Yes, in ancient times there were many gods, but when they speak of God they are talking about the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God of the Old Covenant world of Israel.
"God" is the entire cosmos each and everything, how could you know everything with a human brain? Take dmt, salvia, mushrooms and grow a little ;)
8:09 Thank you for the word salad. It almost seems as if he's showing off his vocabulary.
A father wants a son to know him.
A writer of a book would want his name on it.
Why would "God" our presumed creator make itself so illusive to us it's created? It doesn't make sense.
The longest running game of hide-and-seek!
God has signed every single cell with his DNA signature.
Man made gods to explain why he is here in this universe.
Gods just do everything to satisfy man, but they control him in such a way that man should justify why he created gods.
haha.
I am truly scared to know God for what if my knowledge is wrong and I be living in a fantasy.
You know you are close to the truth, you will see it everywhere.
These folks want there to be a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal being, so they pretend there is one and then they waste their time justifying their own fantasy. It really is a form of mental illness.
really, it's not as reducible as that.
if there can be no evidence for god, for instance, then being an atheist or theist wouldn't be warranted but by our own perspective and experience.
that is, what we believe is a guess swayed entirely by the bias of experience.
the question then, epistemologically, is why ought one believe or doubt.
we ought to believe whatever we're compelled to believe in that case ... or so say thinkers like peirce, dretske, peacock, wright, plantinga, goldman, and so on.
doubtless, some folks do operate as you're describing but i doubt that describes most people ... i think god-talk is an attempt to describe experience.
audi gets that perfectly correct ... practice, commitment, hope ... where believers are or should be responsive to experience in coming to their understandings.
@Cerberus ... sure, it can be all of that. the question though is whether or not the idea of god is invented or is a consequence of experience that needed such an explanation, such a concept.
that is, all ideas are from experience ultimately. we might be wrong about different intuitions but we're far better at intuition than reason. it seems that's a consequence of evolution.
if the idea of deity arose naturally, it seems fitting to believe unless one doesn't; reasoning about either venting may be logically perfect, so, not very helpful in determining what's true and what's not in terms of the mere question of if there are gods.
at least, that's my catch 22.
what do you think?
@Cerberus ... personally, i'm apathetic to the whole thing. i see good reasons to ditch the idea and good reasons to explore it. to me, it's like playing myself in chess; the color that wins is whichever i wish.
too, i don't think a concept of god can entail complete competency, moral character, or benevolence all at the same time.
if genuine evil is the sort that some action cannot possibly add to the betterment of creation and such acts exist, this would create that problem.
the rape and torture of children seems to me to be a genuine evil, and so if god is love, personal, caring, and so on, then what those words mean are so foreign to us that we have no business using them, they don't fit.
but then again, love might just be the sort of abandonment and lack of intervention where the rain falls on us all.
still, the reality of god and what comes out in god-talk are two very different things.
i think theism, atheism, and agnosticism might take the question too seriously ... we have no concept of god but ourselves.
@Cerberus ... who said anything about jesus? the question is about deity in general. do they exist?
probability relies on priors which means evidence. if there can be no evidence for deity, then there can be no priors for any case for or against.
to illustrate:
suppose there are two identical universes that only differ in that one has a god and the other doesn't.
if you were placed in one of these two, then to what would you appeal to assure yourself of which sort you were in?
it would beg the question to say no universe requires gods just as it would to say no universe can exist without god, and, it shows a hidden premise that gods have something to do with the existence of universes and that god's existence makes a causal, phenomenal difference to reality (and this hypothetical doesn't assume any of that).
if any argument brought forward that you'd use in this reality cannot solve the question of the hypothetical, then we ought not have confidence in such an argument full stop.
we can't talk about the existence of god using probabilities.
a.j. ayers makes a good argument having that conclusion as well in "language, truth, and logic".
@Cerberus ... as for jesus or any other sort of god-talk, we can use the philosophical principle of surprise here.
that is, we don't ask what's more likely in terms of probability. we suggest that there is certainly one of two or more propositions which would be far less surprising to any perfectly rational person if it turned out to actually be true than false, or far more surprising if it turned out to be false than true. this applies to the sort of abductive arguments god-talk turns out to be.
obviously it would be far more surprising for a person to walk on water or be a virgin giving birth to babies or coming back to life after three days, and so on, than to think these things are impossible.
in any case, what turns out to be surprising about the existence or non existence of deity cannot itself be settled by such a principle since surprises there aren't set by facts of the matter but by expectation in any case.
Notice how the overwhelming number of comments are from atheists. Why are so many atheists watching videos about God?
It will be advantageous to know your thesis. Then meet antithesis, afterwards you can deduct your synthesis.
Theyre afraid theyre wrong.
How can one know a person without ever making any contact with that person? This is navel-gazing.
God isn't a person.
@@jordancox8294 , you have to be kidding me. God is THREE persons. One of the "selling" points of the religion is "our PERSONAL relationship" to these three persons.
Quintessential example of mental gymnastics to justify belief in a magical being.
@Language and Programming Channel , see my other comment to you in another video. You are still doing it. Keep unverifiable philosophy away from me. Your responses to me are obfuscations.
Language and Programming Channel Where did I say it was magic to believe something?
To me, the existence of evil and bad, tells me there's no god or gods. If you are so gullible to believe in religions...be my guest. Just know that someone (human) needs you for some reason.
I'd rather have there be a good reason for the existence of the "bad" (ie. a God created them for a reason), than for there to be no reason at all. People can endure much suffering if they know there's a good reason to. Just imagine how good the reason must be to justify all the horrors of this world. Or assume there's no reason and suffer even more. Your choice.
@@e1ementZero i wouldnt want a hollow or facade as a reason. I would face reality as it is. Bad is bad, good is good. There is no such duality in reality. But we need the duality to navigate the world. God is not a good moral compass (ethics), nor is it a good way to justify and explain things (science). So the use of the concept of God is only for comfort, but if you can find comfort in people, nature and even better yourself (selves). Then God's worth to exist as a concept is none at all. True strength and true wisdom comes from ourselves, others and everything around us, not from a being we do not have proof of or imagine to exist.
Your jumping the gun with your assumptions. Because without God, then you cannot justify the existence of anything as good, or bad. And if you can't objevtivky call anything good, or bad, then you can't suggest the universe wouldn't have it if God existed.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 you do realise good and bad can come from our conscience as social animals. Our innate need to help others and help ourselves. Morals are not objective after all. Ethics is. Universe at large doesnt have good and bad, or else natural disasters and diseases dont befall on good people. If innate goodness is a God given traits, everyone would have it. But as we can see, without free will, everyone's behaviour is either nature or nurture. Born with it or raised with it. If you claim God exist, the burden of proof lies with you to prove it, as well as how goodness, free will, etc all the traits claimed with God's doing should be proven alongside your claims or else itll just be hearsay or a unfalsifiable hypothesis.
@@albert6157 no it can't. Because it can conflict. If one person is thriving in life because they subjugate, or take advantage of others you literally have zero reason to claim they are wrong for doing so.
If there's no God, then morals soley come from opinion, therefore they mean nothing. The case for ethics, and morals coming from us being social animals only works in the imaginary world where everyone agrees that helping each other is the best way to make our species succeed. When this is neither how people naturally think, nor is it the truth of the matter. In real life the best, and most efficient way to advance the species is for a hyper elite ruling class to subjigate, and direct the rest of the people, and fir those people to allow said subjugation.
It's also very easy to justify killing off sick, or deformed people, as well as the elderly.
You can replace "god" with "the invisible pink unicorn" or "the flying spaghetti monster" in that video, or anything else that does not exist, and it would not change anything about the truth value of the arguments. So, what does that tell you about the reality of god's existence?
@@infiniteepoch8 But the Flying Spaghetti Monster is all powerful!
The point is not to imply that the FSM exists. The point is that it doesn't exist. And you can attribute, or "imply", all kinds of attributes to things that don't exist. It's of no difference to what we can say about them.
Besides, it is not clear what attributes god has. Every religion defines their own variant of god or gods. Some believe in a personal god, some don't. Some believe god is all-powerful, some interpretations say even god is restricted by logic, and some gods have limited power.
I have noticed that the imaginary god looks just like the god that does not exist. Of course that does not mean anything. After all, imaginary apples look just like apples that don't exist as well. So i guess we are comparing apples to oranges. It's just logic!
@@patmoran5339 Not quite, because ordinary apples do exist in reality. Fatih pulls a different trick: The apple cannot be experienced directly, so there is no way for us mortals to know what it looks like, or if it even has any appearance at all.
The imaginary apple is the apple of apples, and all apples have been made in its image. Some say that it is forbidden to make yourself any image of the apple.
Still, everyone can know the imaginary apple is real because you can build a personal relationship to it in your heart. For this, it is required to really try believing in the imaginary apple first, and read the scripture that was handed down to us from its perfect non-existence. The scripture is true because in it, the imaginary apple has revealed itself to us. Also, look at all the apples in the world! They bear witness to the imaginary apple.
How could something as complex like and apple have arisen without a perfect example? Do you really believe that apples have just evolved out of pure randomness, or could have been conceived by another being? Now that's truly naive! Only a perfect, imaginary apple can be the source of all apples. And if you would have let The Apple into your heart, you would know that. But The Apple is always there, it has planted a seed in your soul. You just need to accept its invitation and let it grow. Why do you still hesitate? The Apple wants to nourish you, and your heart wants to be the soil in which The Apple will grow its roots in.
-- See? We define something that cannot be proven or disproven, and with enough vague blah-blah around it, we can cover up the fact that it simply does not exist at all. Watch the video again, and every time they talk about god, imagine they are talking about The Apple, or the invisible pink unicorn, the FSM or The Great Ju-Ju From The Mountain. You will see that nothing, absolutely nothing, about the validity of their arguments changes. And since their arguments can be taken to point to both things that exist and those that do not, none of their arguments can answer the question of wether or not god exists, and what we can know about it. Because their words apply just the same to The Apple, the FSM, etc.
How can we know God?
People have been reading about God since monotheism started, first the jews, then christians, and last but not least, the Muslims.
There is no way to know God by philosophy. Indeed there is no human reason to speculate God's reasons or to understand Him. 'You can search for me, but you won't be able to find me' God said.
God's ethics are different from Human ethics. We are only concerned about what belongs to us within our borders - which are man made. The United Kingdom, for example, belongs to the Queen of England.
If I were to believe in god there would be two
Explains why life is not entirely hell
The evil god would have the upper hand since evil is objectively easier than good explaining the unbalance
@SAMURAI 武士 there isn't such a thing evil objectively, mankind is inherently wicked and aggressive, only cultivation your overriding reason leads to right path...
Used car salesman didn't convince me
God is human problem since their consciousness evolving and start questioning to the their source (conscious), so they created the knowledge of god to figure out what they think about and they started connecting their consciouness to the other conscious agents and far more to the super-conscious body that may ruling this all existence.
As smart men think they are, when they diskrimate women, i dont think they have think very far.
Yoga says:
Your true SELF is God. You just have to drop your chronic thinking 😃
Consciousness is God. Every living being is a reflection of God in an imperfect mirror
Read "be as you are" by David Goodman
So what makes you think consciousness is god? Only because you heard it from yoga?
The two words Lawrence is really crazy about are "ultimate" and "fundamental". LOL
Its called being skeptical and curious. That's all.
These guests need to call the Atheist Experience when Matt Dillahunty is on, so they can get their wordy nonsense arguments shredded to confetti.