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Forums - General Discussion - Where is God hiding?

MoiseHnkel on 19 April 2013

In your heart you silly. OR ! maybe on a toast



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dsgrue3 on 19 April 2013
MoiseHnkel said:
In your heart you silly. OR ! maybe on a toast

Lol I assume you're talking about this:



richardhutnik on 19 April 2013
Ouroboros24 said:
richardhutnik said:
pokoko said:
On a serious note, god existing or not, I will never, ever understand the concept of worship. I don't get it. In fact, I would automatically lose respect for any god that required worship. It's an immature and fearful idea born from immature and fearful cultures.

If there really is a god out there, and he's as illuminated as people claim, I would imagine that he face-palms quite often over the whole bowing and kneeling thing. He's probably waiting for humanity to stand up and start thinking for itself on a regular basis.

Explain what the point of the that picture in your profile for me. I don't get it.

My understanding of worship, in its many forms, is that people feel a need to trumpet things they see of superior value to others, to show virtue and whatnot.  There is also a desire to have things that are sacred.  Real worship involves doing things to reflect the ideals of the object of the worship, and reflect its nature, and then when seeing it express one's feelings towards it.  That is the heart of worship actually.  And you see a LOT of it on this site, in these forums thrown at this game or that, or this fictional character or that.

Your over all assessment of worship is accurate, but your belief of embedded signatures here on this site doesn't necessarily reflect that of worship.  I personally don't like to project any sort of worship or fandom, hence mines being empty, but I think most people who do don't necessarily think their sigs are evangelically praising their specific likes or interests.  Simply that they are personally involve with what they have and they'd like to share that with people. 

Don't take my comment about embedded signatures too seriously, but I will say that fandom borrows from the same part of brain as religious worship.  And also, worship doesn't need to evangelize anything actually, just sing praises of something, which is at the heart of worship.  I was just saying it was connected.



richardhutnik on 19 April 2013
binary solo said:
You can cross out life from non-life.

But you left out the most important thing: the universe, existence itself.

What is the recent experiment of life from non-life that has manifested itself?  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Care to show anything that is a model that shows how it works consistently?

Pretty much research today consists of hacking life as is and modifying it.



richardhutnik on 19 April 2013
dsgrue3 said:

 

And your assumption that my meaning was to address the existence of God is entirely misguided. This was simply a rebuttal to the "God of the gaps" argument that has become ubiquitous.

I don't go to Sony US headquarters every Sunday and listen to the VP talk about how great it is and how it is a way to salvation. Loose definitions of worship won't save you here I'm afraid. That's called being a fan - no different from supporting (not worshipping) your favorite sports team.

richardhutnik said:

Problem in this individualistic culture, about the only thing that unites people now is human tragedy.  On the religious front, at least you get some positive fellowship, rather than that of suffering.  You get some unity that does't require a bomb going off.

And pardon my being very blunt here, but I am disappointed by threads like this.  They are generally simplistic in their views and really are just rehashing.  I can run the book of Job ending and have people get back to me when they understand everything.  Issues in regards to theological stuff generally is far more involved with limits of human reasoning and capacities than with the God side.  Free will vs determinism?  Where did everything come from?  Where are we heading?  Is there life after death?  Why is there evil in the world?  All these also show how stupid and weak humans are in the big picture.  Plug in other ones also.

lolwut, suicide bombers are exclusively theistic.

Questions such as those are best left to philosophy, not to theology as you're making quite the assumption to state that they are theological by nature.

Following a sports team is very much a religious experience.  The way it manifests itself involves rituals and so on.  There is irrational reverence for things, based mainly in the emotional area.  Following sports is very much a religious experience, and it can be argued that sports serves the roll that nationalism and religious fellowship belonged to.  It is a similar thing, showing the complete and irrational fanboyism you see towards consoles.  This religious impulse doesn't have to do with salvation or eternity either.  But it fills a similar need that religious fellowship does.

And my bomb reference was to Boston and how that united a city.  I don't see atheists forming community at all.  They just don't.  There is nothing positive there at all to be able to unite people on things.  Atheism is a negation.  What ends up taking its place is individualism and personal preferences that would unite people and form community.  Communities don't consist of groups of people doing their own thing.  You see what happened to Occupy after they lost the parks, as an example.  Humans without a positive belief will only come together when facing a tragedy.

And your last comment is an interesting snotty shot at things.  The reality is that, because people don't have answers to these great questions, it is was said to show that they wouldn't even be able to answer questions about there being a God or gods.  Like, exactly how could one tell if there is a God or not?  Seriously doubt you could answer this.



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dsgrue3 on 19 April 2013
richardhutnik said:

Following a sports team is very much a religious experience.  The way it manifests itself involves rituals and so on.  There is irrational reverence for things, based mainly in the emotional area.  Following sports is very much a religious experience, and it can be argued that sports serves the roll that nationalism and religious fellowship belonged to.  It is a similar thing, showing the complete and irrational fanboyism you see towards consoles.  This religious impulse doesn't have to do with salvation or eternity either.  But it fills a similar need that religious fellowship does.

And my bomb reference was to Boston and how that united a city.  I don't see atheists forming community at all.  They just don't.  There is nothing positive there at all to be able to unite people on things.  Atheism is a negation.  What ends up taking its place is individualism and personal preferences that would unite people and form community.  Communities don't consist of groups of people doing their own thing.  You see what happened to Occupy after they lost the parks, as an example.  Humans without a positive belief will only come together when facing a tragedy.

And your last comment is an interesting snotty shot at things.  The reality is that, because people don't have answers to these great questions, it is was said to show that they wouldn't even be able to answer questions about there being a God or gods.  Like, exactly how could one tell if there is a God or not?  Seriously doubt you could answer this.

Does the sports team exist? Yes.

Does god exist (let alone the other specific events/doctrines/etc)? No one knows.

They are completely unrelated. Does sports fanhood promote insanity on the same order as religion? Certainly. You see that on this forum even with console fanhood. 

You say the bombing united the city, not just the religious people and then proceeded to compare it solely to religion. Tragedy unites everyone in the community, regardless of religion/belief/morals etc.

No, my last comment was to not make assumptions. Assuming "what is the purpose of life" is a theological question is entirely absurd. 



Gamerace on 19 April 2013

Why post question re: God or religion on a site where people study something as superfluous as video games (myself included) instead of on a site where people study God and religion? If you want a serious answer, go to where people have seriously studied the matter. Or perhaps you don't actually want a challenging answer.



 

dsgrue3 on 19 April 2013
Gamerace said:
Why post question re: God or religion on a site where people study something as superfluous as video games (myself included) instead of on a site where people study God and religion? If you want a serious answer, go to where people have seriously studied the matter. Or perhaps you don't actually want a challenging answer.

Because I don't want to hear religious rhetoric where a bunch of passages are thrown in my face from a Bronze Age book as if that somehow substantiates anything.

In other words, I enjoy hearing viewpoints from every day people.



7204life on 19 April 2013

nowhere,,,he's only in our heads



richardhutnik on 19 April 2013
dsgrue3 said:
richardhutnik said:

Following a sports team is very much a religious experience.  The way it manifests itself involves rituals and so on.  There is irrational reverence for things, based mainly in the emotional area.  Following sports is very much a religious experience, and it can be argued that sports serves the roll that nationalism and religious fellowship belonged to.  It is a similar thing, showing the complete and irrational fanboyism you see towards consoles.  This religious impulse doesn't have to do with salvation or eternity either.  But it fills a similar need that religious fellowship does.

And my bomb reference was to Boston and how that united a city.  I don't see atheists forming community at all.  They just don't.  There is nothing positive there at all to be able to unite people on things.  Atheism is a negation.  What ends up taking its place is individualism and personal preferences that would unite people and form community.  Communities don't consist of groups of people doing their own thing.  You see what happened to Occupy after they lost the parks, as an example.  Humans without a positive belief will only come together when facing a tragedy.

And your last comment is an interesting snotty shot at things.  The reality is that, because people don't have answers to these great questions, it is was said to show that they wouldn't even be able to answer questions about there being a God or gods.  Like, exactly how could one tell if there is a God or not?  Seriously doubt you could answer this.

Does the sports team exist? Yes.

Does god exist (let alone the other specific events/doctrines/etc)? No one knows.

They are completely unrelated. Does sports fanhood promote insanity on the same order as religion? Certainly. You see that on this forum even with console fanhood. 

You say the bombing united the city, not just the religious people and then proceeded to compare it solely to religion. Tragedy unites everyone in the community, regardless of religion/belief/morals etc.

No, my last comment was to not make assumptions. Assuming "what is the purpose of life" is a theological question is entirely absurd. 

What part of: COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF HUMAN BEINGS AT THIS TIME IS INSUFFICIENT TO RATIONALLY ANSWER WHETHER OR NOT GOD EXISTS do you not grasp in what I have said?  Apparently your inabiliity to address this question shows clearly of an ability to do so.

The reality is this: Until people can actually come up with ways of determining with degrees of certainty what God is, and how to tell if God exists, then they aren't going to be able to do so, in a way that doesn't make the answer subjective and merely a sophist philosophical persuasion trick.  

There is a reality though that you do see some positive community building for religious reasons, and demands it makes, that are absent when you take God and/or religion out of the equation.