God exists

I'm no theologian, and I have a very scant background in philosophy. I'm not particularly devout..

I'm a "Christmas and Easter" Catholic...

But I think a God(s) exists, and I'm pretty sure about it.

Try to imagine a hyper-cube. For those without a math background, a hypercube is a 4 dimensional cube. Time isn't the fourth dimension; it has four spatial dimensions. Now try to imagine a cube with more than four dimensions. It is colored with more colors than we can perceive with our eyes; new colors that have never been seen before.

It's impossible to imagine, because our brains aren't wired to understand it. If a thousand people try to describe what they see we will get a thousand different answers, or at least as many different answers that aren't, "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm".

Religion is like that. The supernatural is too complex for human minds to understand completely. There is probably no religion that is the Truth.

How else can one explain the preponderance of world religions? In my view, world religions are all different lens for seeing the same supernatural. Our minds are so ill-equipped to understand the supernatural that experiencing the same supernatural entity will be perceived by different religious luminaries completely differently.

Can you accept that every important religious figure in history is a complete sham? Jesus was a deranged illusionist, Mohammed was making it all up, and Buddha was just a loony underneath the Bodhi tree. The religious luminaries of the world religions were not lunatic cult leaders. They attracted support of large portions of their surrounding populations, as well as the support of intellectuals of their communities. Not everyone who followed these people was as gullible as a Heaven's Gate member.

I can't accept sociological explanations for religion. Do people really "need" religion, a belief in a god? Look at parts of Europe where religion is for all intents and purposes dead. How do these people function without their mental need for religion? They do just fine. There are no grand new religions springing from the woodworks (scientology doesn't count) to replace the spiritual void left in these people's lives. Views that hold that ancient peoples were all simpletons, unlike our present sophistication, smacks of cultural elitism.

I'd be happy to discuss the Marxist interpretation of religion, but I doubt many people reading this ascribe to it, so I won't bother.

So where does that leave us in terms of our own personal religion? I think our task is to find the religion that we feel best describes the supernatural. Can we be confident that every last ritualistic belief in our religion is the Truth? No, of course not.

Is choosing religion a lottery pick where you win or lose? No, it isn't that either.

Back to the spatial dimensions analogy.

Imagine you can only perceive two dimensions, and the supernatural is a three-dimensional object, pure white against a black background. It is a complex three-dimensional object. Depending on which angle you view it from, you will get a completely different two-dimensional silhoutte of that object. Regardless of which picture you look at, you are still seeing the object though. To us they would look completely different, like they were not even from the same object, but they are.

Spirituality is not simple, and there are no easy answers. For me personally, I am content to have possibly partially incorrect idea of the true god. I see my purpose in life as primarily to make the world better for those for are less fortunate than me. I see greed and violence as the antithesis of the way of the supernatural, which I interpret through my Catholic lense.

•  mojo

  by srolle on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:30:59 AM PDT

  •  prove it

    by israelfox87 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:25:05 AM PDT

    •  In my opinion...

      ...the biggest mistake anyone makes regarding the existence of a "God" is trying to prove it either way.

      How does one prove the existence or nonexistence of a being who is, by definition, beyone empirical evidence?

      by Jonathan on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:59:20 AM PDT

      •  Burden of proof

        The burden of proof is on the extrordinary claim. I, as an atheist, do not have to prove *any*thing. The lack of proof is enough. It is left to the believer to prove his believe.

        by lynne1 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:05:46 AM PDT

        •  Er

          Belief.

          by lynne1 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:07:44 AM PDT

        •  Disagree

          You are making a claim regarding something for which evidence cannot be provided either way: namely, the existence or nonexistence of a noncorporeal being.  Such a claim requires proof.

          In my opinion (again), the only position consistent with the principles of logic and empirical evidence is agnosticism.

          And since none of us are purely logical or hold only beliefs that are consistent with empirical evidence, I think a failure to live up to those standards is rather forgiveable.

          by Jonathan on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:11:50 AM PDT

          •  yep

            i agree...if this had been a diary saying god does not exist...i would have told them to prove it.

            It doesnt matter whether there is a god or not...just live as a good person no matter what the reward is...a good life is enough of a reward.

            by israelfox87 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:53:19 AM PDT

            •  amen

              Seriously.

              Since I abandoned Christianity in favor of atheism, I have found that the abyss of looming non-existence has made me savor my own life and the lives of others FAR MORE than any fear of punishment or hope of reward.

              by immortalmikey on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:33:02 PM PDT

          •  disagree with you

            Someone asserts the existence of insensible elephants pissing insensible urine on our heads.

            Now, you may be right that since there is no way to prove or disprove the assertion, we should neither believe nor disbelieve it, and declare ourselves agnostic with respect to it.

            But in practice, I am going to disbelieve such a claim, and expend my mental energy entirely on evaluating other, more plausible claims.

            Unless, of course, the Elephantists control the discourse.

            by social democrat on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 04:49:52 PM PDT

•  Seeing is not believing

  What does it mean if we see something (or experience something) that defies "logic" and we dismiss it or ignore it?  

  I'm curious about what it is in our brains (biochemically?) that inhibit us from "seeing" these, perhaps, other dimensions.  

  What's that movie- What the *#@$% Do We Know, where the quantum physics researcher tells about some people looking into a scope where they can see one tiny object being in two places at the same time- something impossible, really, and they dismiss it as though it were no big deal?  He wondered if they were, as you suggest, limited in their ability to percieve something that was beyond the scope of their reality.

  Not sure if this is way off base, but these are my initial reactions to your post...

  by tepster on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:43:08 AM PDT

•  Circular reasoning

  Your claim that religions are all different ways of interpreting the same supernatural presupposes the existence of that supernatural.

  An equally likely explanation, which follows parallel to your reasoning, is that religions are all different ways of interpreting the same ignorance.

  by Philosophy on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:46:09 AM PDT

  •  i think you misunderstood my reasoning

    or i didn't explain it well enough...

    I think the religious experiences, the enlightments, of religious luminaries throughout history is evidence of the supernatural.

    How does ignorance breed religious enlightments? You have to rely on a sociological role for religion, which I don't think is true. I use the ability of societies to live without religion as evidence, which was the argument I tried to make in the middle paragraph above.

    by srolle on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:55:41 AM PDT

    •  re

      Fly in your ointment. I was watching some intresting show on PBS about a neurologist.

      Turns out there is a brain disorder that literally makes people believe they are jesus (or whatever god then believed in pre disorder).

      My first thoughts after seeing this was, "what if Jesus had this affliction?"

      the last 2000 years based on a guy with a brain disorder...

      wow.

      (ps I mean no disrespect i just put this explaination WAAAYYYY ahead of the existence of some supernatural being....wayyyyyyy ahead.)

      by cookiesandmilk on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:03:25 AM PDT

      •  that's intriguing

        what is the disorder called/what was the show called?

        by srolle on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:19:09 AM PDT

        •  re

          I can't rember but i think there was a book that they based it on and i do know the doctor was of India - heritage.

          He had been keeping track of the patient for years...
          

          by cookiesandmilk on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:30:30 AM PDT

        •  I believe it was a Nova

          episode, Secrets of the Mind, although it was a minor side note to a show about phantom limbs.

          I think the doctor's name was V.S. Ramachandran, at UC San Diego.

          Also, a book along the same lines garnered some Big Media exposure, aka The God Gene.
          

          by Ugluks Flea on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:51:14 AM PDT

          •  re

            Bingo.

            Thanks.

            by cookiesandmilk on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:56:45 AM PDT

      •  It's also been shown...

        ... that out of body near-death experiences can be duplicated by stimulating electrodes in the part of the brain that tells you that you're inside your body (in other words, creates your point of view). This was discovered a couple of years back during some experimental treatment on a severely epileptic woman -- all of a sudden, she found herself outside her body looking "at" it.

        by sagesource on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:08:51 AM PDT

        •  re

          and this is what it comes down to for me... we know so little about our brain. Yet this few pound device holds the entire universe (literally) for us...

          Brain misfiringsand imbalances will probably be found to be the root of all these things....

          The need for religion is probably hard wired. Its a coping mechanism. Those tribes that have a quiet comfort that "they understand" everything are far more likely to succeed than a tribe that is so busy wracking their brains about god that they forget to plant the corn and die of starvation during the winter...
          

          by cookiesandmilk on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:25:01 AM PDT

  •  Have you not read Kant?

    Are you going to argue that 'Critique of Pure Reason' was based on a circular argument?

    One can not apply pure reason to prove the existence of God, if the laws of physics and reason do not apply to God.

    by lordkelvin on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:05:44 AM PDT

•  81 (3 ^ 4) separate cubes

  occupying the same space.  A tesseract.  Oddly enough, I had actually been thinking about it this week.

  by mikepridmore on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:46:28 AM PDT

•  Religion doesn't exist in a vacume.

  It rushes in to fill the void created by fear and ignorance.

  by jazzmaniac on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:47:06 AM PDT

  •  Unfortunately...

    or perhaps fortunately, that vacuum will always exist.

    The one thing we can hope for is that people don't insist on believing things that are disproven by what we do know.

    by Jonathan on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:01:53 AM PDT

•  asdf

  To me what is problematic is the insistance that the importance of God and religion is a supernatural one. I share the view of many contemporary progressive theologians that the "more than literal" meaning of relgious texts is the most operative one.

  Whether God exists depends greatly on how one defines God. A lot of people are convinced there is no God because God has been defined for them as supernatural and they have interpreted it as extraordinarily improbable if not a logical impossibility. Some of them never move beyond that to consider what God might be in actual reality, in their own life, and the value of devotion to God. Some of them actually are deeply committed to God (to love, to basic human values) but deny it because they consider God to mean something else which they do not acknowledge.

  by Elizabeth D on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:47:12 AM PDT

•  perhaps

  people all over the world have religions for the same reason they use the same facial expressions to express emotions. we're predisposed to.

  we're predisposed to learn and use languages at a young age. birds are wired to do the same. they have a window during which they are able to learn how to sing. complicated behaviors can be explained by natural means. there doesn't need to be anything supernatural about a tendency toward religion.

  you bring up europeans as examples of people who are irreligious. i'm not sure they all are. but so what if they were. it's completely plausible that they might be directing a religious instinct in some other direction.

  as for historical figures... why trust any one account of their lives? reagan's not even been out of office for 20 years and the rethugs are already cleaning him up for posterity.

  i think there are simpler explanations than god. i think human behaviors can be explained by why we know about the natural world. falling back on the supernatural seems lazy. like saying, "if i can't explain it, there must not be a plausible natural explanation."

  by bribone on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:51:04 AM PDT

  •  can't you live without relgion?

    I'm pretty sure, if I was never exposed to any form of religion, I would do prefectly fine without it. Its not like I catch myself thinking, "gee, I'm glad  I believe in god, or I would just have no purpose." That's only my personal perspective on it.

    I'm not claiming that every bit about their lives is completely true. Was Mary really a virgin when Jesus was born? That specific 'fact' of the birth story may very well have been fabricated over time. Did Jesus exist? Did Jesus experience a deeper understanding of the super-natural than other people of his time had? Did Jesus produce a set of ideas that was followed by many people after his death? I think the answer to these questions is yes, I dont they could have been fabricated.

    But look deeper, I don't need every religious figures historical accuracy to make my case. You on the other hand do need every religious figures historical fabrication. Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Adam and Eve (well that shouldnt be difficult), Buddha, Native American spiritualities, every other religion that I am unfamiliar with. Sure stories contain incorrect facts 'repolished' through the course of history, but they had to start with something. They did not spring fully formed from a magi's forehead.

    by srolle on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:14:40 AM PDT

    •  easily, i live without it daily

      lots of people live without religion. that doesn't mean the impulse isn't there. most people seem to find some sort of belief system, whether it's religious, political, scientific, or in some other field. i think people tend to seek out authority and certainty.

      i'm not disputing every detail associated with jesus, buddha, and etc. i don't need to. only the supernatural details lend any support to the existence of a god or other supernatural entity.

      i could accept that a man named jesus lived and had some ideas that influenced other people. but, if he didn't turn water into wine, if he didn't heal lepers and rise from the dead, then he's just some guy. his ideas... take them or leave them. they may or may not be useful. the ideas are human, not divine.

      by bribone on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:30:50 AM PDT

•  There's nothing wrong with a belief in God

  It is a natural reaction to the mystery of existence, which science, despite its many attributes, freely admits it cannot explain. Science answers the question How? or What? but Why? is beyond its capabilities.  

  The trouble with God or other spiritual concepts is not with belief itself, but with the human desire to impose one's own belief system on other human beings.  We are social creatures and all societies require order and control.  It is the excessive imposition of control by those who propose that their beliefs are the only correct ones which has led to all the trouble mankind has ever experienced at the hands of religion.

  The impulse begins with altruism -- the person who experiences the divine wishes to enlighten his or her fellows.  Sadly, it never ends there.  Inevitably, religion corrupts faith with its desire to control the lives and thoughts of its adherents, and its desire to increase its own power and authority.

  This is the major reason I have abandoned all forms of organized religion, though I remain a spiritual seeker.

  by Steven D on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 09:54:20 AM PDT

•  those 2 diaries

  We can't prove or disprove the existence of God, thus the logical stance is "I don't know". Agnosticism.

  by rukkus on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:05:16 AM PDT

  •  my favorite description of religion is

    "yours is wrong."

    i think, in the absence of any evidence, the burden of proof is on the believers.

    by bribone on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:34:00 AM PDT

  •  true, but...

    Repeating myself, but:

    Say someone asserts the existence of insensible elephants pissing insensible urine on our heads.

    Now, since it's not possible to prove or disprove the assertion, if someone asks you "Is it true?" the right answer my very well be "I don't know."

    But the answer to the questions "Should you believe it?" and even "Does it merit serious consideration?" is "No."

    by social democrat on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 04:59:23 PM PDT

•  The Ineffable

  While I'm a Christian, (and that word has a multitude of meanings that aren't altogether harmonizable) I like the Jewish refusal to say the name(s) of the Ineffable.  Names we give to that which we don't understand take on baggage that makes no sense.  It is enough that human beings have the ability to ask questions about the meaning of life that go beyond how we get food, sex, and shelter.  Somewhere in those great questions is the unknown quality I call the Ineffable and that some call "God."  

  by tikkun on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:08:38 AM PDT

•  I agree, Skeptics are fooling themselves!

  All Bow Before NATURE'S HARMONIC SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY TIME CUBE

  
  

  by I disagree with the GOP on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:09:41 AM PDT

  •  egads

    what the fuck is that shit?

    by srolle on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:16:21 AM PDT

    •  It is the alpha and the omega

      
      The 4 quadrant corners of the
      Earth sphere rotate as a quad
      spiraling helix - thus creating
      4 simultaneous days per each
      rotation and 4 simultaneous
      years per 1 orbit around Sun.

      Earth is composed of 4 Worlds.
      1 corner human knows but 1.
      Self is below the family form
      of 4-corner metamorphosis.
      1 human  equates  1 corner.
      Family is the creation body.
      Village is the perpetual body.
      Humans bartered their mind
      to the SELF in their likeness.

      There are 4 different Worlds
      on Earth. Yours is 1 of them.
      You're ignorant of 3 of them.
      Such ignorance is damnable.
      
      

      by I disagree with the GOP on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:59:44 AM PDT

  •  Marvellous!

    I thought I was the only one who was aware of that bizarre man's ramblings. Isn't it just great?

    by Severian on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:09:29 AM PDT

  •  By the way...

    Here's the link to the site he's referencing. Check it out, but be prepared for a massive headache.

    I suppose this is what some atheists feel like when hearing us theists talk, but...damn. I mean, we don't sound this crazy, do we?

    by Severian on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:12:25 AM PDT

    •  Well, um . . .

      "I mean, we don't sound this crazy, do we?"

      Not to put too fine a point on it, but since you asked, well . . . yes . . .

         All extant species took a ride, two by two, on an "ark"?

         Two (contradictory) "creation myths" in the same book?

         A "god" which responds to the prayers of . . . high school football teams?

         A "there's only one" (monotheistic) "god" which describes itself as "jealous"?

         An omnipotent "god" which uses feeding tubes to "preserve life"?

         A "god" which begets virgins with sacrificial offerings (to itself?)?

      Those just a few among so many possible examples . . . (slanted heavily toward "xtians", but other "god faiths" don't look much better in their particulars).  "Crazy" is one of the kinder words one might use to describe it . . .

      Ordinarily I wouldn't care . . . we're all "crazy" in one way or another . . . but when Supreme Court Justices are to be chosen depending on whether they "believe" such nonsense it becomes a matter of "personal interest".

      Since you asked . . .

      by Deward Hastings on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 12:00:07 PM PDT

•  My God is Better than Your God

  As a pantheist, my proof of the existence of god is all this stuff that composes the universe. Therefore, I don't have to believe in anything supernatural, and I don't need faith in a benevolent deity micromanaging the affairs of its true believers. Neener neener neener!

  by GW Chimpzilla on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:26:55 AM PDT

•  Secular Human Atheists...

  are moral people too.

  Maybe even more so, because instead of believing in a future reward for treating other people in a just and moral way, we do it simply because...it's the right thing to do.

  Religion is bunk. Everyone should read The End Of Faith by Sam Harris.

  Oh, and I've had lots of spiritual experiences. I just don't attribute them to an invisible omniscient man in the sky. Or any other invisible force. But I do think the human mind is a pretty spectacular thing that we may never completely understand.

  No one's obervations have proved the existance of that invisible force, not to any reproducible results. Until that day comes, I will remain an atheist. I don't apologize for offending people when I say that I think people who do believe in an invisible force without proof are a bit on the credulous side.

  by lynne1 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:32:19 AM PDT

  •  Couldn't Agree More

    on your recommendation of Sam Harris's The End of Faith.  It's well-written and provocative.  The discussions on his site  are interesting, too, and make for good reading.  

    by lightiris on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:37:59 AM PDT

  •  Reading Harris now

    And, as I do, I keep coming back to this quote that I read some years ago:

    I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

    ~~Stephen Roberts

    I am not an atheist as usually defined, but under this definition . . . well, it's interesting to think about.

    by GOTV on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:43:39 AM PDT

•  Is any of this that important?

  What difference does it make if one beleives in God, or a specific religion, and if one doesn't?
  We are all inhabitants of this planet, and we should,if we want to be respected, offer the same respect to others. It should make no difference what others beleive. The problem I have with religious people, or non-religious people, is there are those on both sides who feel it necessary to force their beleifs or non beleifs on the rest of us. Unfortunatly, today, we are forced to live under a government who because of political expediancy, feel it is necessary to shove their religious beleifs down everyone's throats. The whole Terri Shiavo contraversary was a private matter, a family matter, like thousands of other family matters. Our founding fathers set up our government to allow the courts to deal with such matters. Many people who have had family matters decided in the courts, although they might be unhappy with the decision, they simply do not make a "Federal Case" out of it. If they beleive in God, they find a way to go on, and their  beliefs tell them, if the decision was wrong, it will be decided by a higher power. This whole thing, was not our business, we were not privy, nor should we have been privy to any of the facts in the case. When it effects you and your family, then you have a right to weigh in. It seems as if the media starts a contraversary to fill a void in their programming, and our stupid, gutless elected officials see the popularity in the issue, and then take sides, Terri Shiavo was not the first time. It was not long ago we had the Laci Peterson law, and I fear, next we will have them voting upon the Michael Jackson law. This has to stop!!!!

  by Vera Lofaro on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:37:49 AM PDT

•  You were not created.

  Humans walked upright on this planet for 3 million years before a God concept entered into individual and collective consciousness. This God concept was likely the result of a visitor from another planetary system. The only Biblical passage to ring with the sound of truth is, "from ashes to ashes and dust to dust". We are entirely of this planet. (Einstein is correct. Energy cannot be created and energy cannot be destroyed). You were not created. You will not be saved by an alien visitor.  

  by multispeed49 on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:41:41 AM PDT

  •  I don't know

    But I do know that humans have only existed in our current form for about 100,000 years, not 3 million.  At least that is what all the evidence says to date.

    by you like it on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:40:31 AM PDT

•  I prefer autotheism

  Being the religious doctrine that says I am my own God.

  I mean, if you think about it, we each are at the center of our own universe...

  by eugene on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 10:54:39 AM PDT

•  Possibly purely physical

  All religion may be based on purely physical phenomena. We now know that most aspects of the so-called "near death experience" can be duplicated in the lab by purely physical, and quite mundane, means (oxygen starvation, derangement of the part of the brain that locates your point of view "inside" your head, and so on). Our ancestors didn't have the ability to get to the bottom of these phenomena, so they based religious speculations on them. Even today, it almost seems cruel to pop the bubble of someone hopefully blotivating about what they saw before being revived with a dry list of how all of it can be traced to the successive steps of the banal and universal process of (in his or her case interrupted) physical death.

  Our ancestors had an excuse -- ignorance. We don't. But it is a harmless enough fantasy, I suppose.

  by sagesource on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:14:56 AM PDT

•  multi dimensional objects

  I don't think multi-dimensional objects are a good analogy. Because, while it's dificult to imagine what one would "look like," we can describe them mathematically, and essentially know everything about them, except the basic visual. But when you think about it, what it looks like doesn't really matter.

  by Bundy on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:14:59 AM PDT

•  Religion = Virus of the Mind

  http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html

  God is a product of natural selection

  http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/1997/11/virus.html

  by I disagree with the GOP on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:20:37 AM PDT

•  similar musings

  …can be watched (from a safe distance) here.

  by Felix Deutsch on Sun Apr 03, 2005 at 11:50:47 AM PDT