[CliveG]

All knowledge and wisdom and prophecy is invalid and even if you see an angel you don't know what to make of it.

Perhaps I'll ask about some unsolved problems in mathematics and get 1 million dollar of easy money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems

God and the psychic world operate according to a set of rules. Much like the real world does. Getting rich is selfish and your request will not be granted. A prayer group for a deserving person is much more likely to succeed in modest ways.

There are huge numbers of frauds who operate using people's greed. It is one way to tell who they are. Another example is tales of direct conversations and visits to God such as told by Wendy Alec. It just does not happen although people really want to believe it does. People want to hear stories confirming the supernatural and they lose their skepticism.

I had no control over the psychic events that happened to me. They were few and random but after a long time (when I was in my sixties) I could see a pattern of learning. That is the science part. Observing and making deductions that are not contradictory or illogical.

[hamdani yusuf]

All knowledge and wisdom and prophecy is invalid and even if you see an angel you don't know what to make of it.

Perhaps I'll ask about some unsolved problems in mathematics and get 1 million dollar of easy money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems

God and the psychic world operate according to a set of rules. Much like the real world does. Getting rich is selfish and your request will not be granted. A prayer group for a deserving person is much more likely to succeed in modest ways.

There are huge numbers of frauds who operate using people's greed. It is one way to tell who they are. Another example is tales of direct conversations and visits to God such as told by Wendy Alec. It just does not happen although people really want to believe it does. People want to hear stories confirming the supernatural and they lose their skepticism.

I had no control over the psychic events that happened to me. They were few and random but after a long time (when I was in my sixties) I could see a pattern of learning. That is the science part. Observing and making deductions that are not contradictory or illogical.

What if I pledge to donate all of that money to charities to save starving children in developing countries?

[CliveG]

All knowledge and wisdom and prophecy is invalid and even if you see an angel you don't know what to make of it.

Perhaps I'll ask about some unsolved problems in mathematics and get 1 million dollar of easy money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems

God and the psychic world operate according to a set of rules. Much like the real world does. Getting rich is selfish and your request will not be granted. A prayer group for a deserving person is much more likely to succeed in modest ways.

There are huge numbers of frauds who operate using people's greed. It is one way to tell who they are. Another example is tales of direct conversations and visits to God such as told by Wendy Alec. It just does not happen although people really want to believe it does. People want to hear stories confirming the supernatural and they lose their skepticism.

I had no control over the psychic events that happened to me. They were few and random but after a long time (when I was in my sixties) I could see a pattern of learning. That is the science part. Observing and making deductions that are not contradictory or illogical.

What if I pledge to donate all of that money to charities to save starving children in developing countries?

It comes down to your motivation. If you are trying to test the existence of God, that is not allowed. If you want to get fame and recognition, that again is a selfish act. God wants people to strive to do good - not fill out an application form. God only intervenes for small personal requests that are easy to do and difficult to prove his/her existence, or the intervention is to guide the destiny of humankind.

These last interventions can different forms. One is that he can do nothing to prevent a pandemic like the Black Plague. Another is that he can stop a pandemic from spreading at a time it would direct humankind in the wrong direction. He is going to do nothing to stop the pending die-off which has already started but people are ignoring it and will ignore it until too late.

Most big interventions look natural. The extinction of the dinosaurs is an example.

Note that my hypothesis of God being part of the virtual reality means that God has limitations as does Satan. The Infinite Intelligence can allow God to do just about anything, and know just about anything, so my hypothesis does not interfere with how religions view God. It does explain the limitations of God despite his enormous ability to be powerful and all knowing. It explains why evil exists in the form of Satan.

I experienced the Infinite Intelligence when I was in my twenties. My studies of various religions recently made me aware of the Hindu concept of Brahman which is similar.

I also experienced being judged after death. I learned there is no argument. All is known. Once I was sent back because I was lacking achievement (either good or bad). The other time I was terminated permanently (but woke the next morning because it was a lesson). The lesson here is that souls are not necessarily eternal. Having experienced death twice in my dreams (painful sword in the neck and sword in the gut), I guess that re-incarnation of souls is possible. Re-incarnation makes sense. Souls evolve as species evolve. Otherwise there would be enormous number of souls just hanging around. Even with reincarnation, people should follow the teachings of Jesus and not look down upon a suffering person as one being taught Karma.

The souls direct the growing spirit to guide the growing physical.  One does not come back in a lesser form. This is needed for the formation of the brain which cannot follow genetic code to form the structures needed. Simply too complex. The soul does the fine tuning and detail, and does some subtle influence throughout life. That quiet voice or that intuition at times.

Suffering is thus temporary. Even the death of children or babies means the soul gets another chance.

[Europan Ocean]

I began living in a farm cottage which I realized had a bad spirit causing daily problems.

On a science site?
Really?

Isn't that the sort of thing Carl Jung experienced before he devised modern psychology? Paranormal psychology.

[Europan Ocean]

All knowledge and wisdom and prophecy is invalid and even if you see an angel you don't know what to make of it.

Perhaps I'll ask about some unsolved problems in mathematics and get 1 million dollar of easy money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems

It seems the people who have positive NDEs want to be closer to people than money and spend it on them and work closely with needy people.

[CliveG]

I began living in a farm cottage which I realized had a bad spirit causing daily problems.

On a science site?
Really?

Isn't that the sort of thing Carl Jung experienced before he devised modern psychology? Paranormal psychology.

Just have a look at the books that propose the Prime Cause other than God. The understanding of our universe must necessarily try to understand and find answers to the underlying reason for our existence and the underlying reason for the laws of physics. The concept of God is one proposition, and one has to look for clues as to his existence.

Mental telepathy is another phenomenon that I have experienced reasonably often. Quite dramatically at one time in my early forties.

As a teenager I ran an experiment by telling a friend many houses away to check and remember the time. They were going to bed and got up to see the time. They said that they not only felt compelled to look at the time (the time I was thinking of) and felt it was important but went to the kitchen clock to be sure that it was correct.

Also as a teenager, I hypnotized a person who could read minds even if the other people were in another room. When the person was able to accurately predict a sequence of events in the next hour (the arrival of a friend, what they would say, what they would wear, and why they had decided to come). There were no phones in the area (early 1960 in Zimbabwe) and there was no pre-arrangement. Waiting for this to happen meant I would be a half hour late to meet my mother who insisted on promptness. The person told me my mother would be 35 minutes late. It got too spooky for me and others and I stopped experimenting.

[Bored chemist]

A prayer group for a deserving person is much more likely to succeed in modest ways.

https://xkcd.com/285/

[hamdani yusuf]

It comes down to your motivation. If you are trying to test the existence of God, that is not allowed. If you want to get fame and recognition, that again is a selfish act. God wants people to strive to do good - not fill out an application form. God only intervenes for small personal requests that are easy to do and difficult to prove his/her existence, or the intervention is to guide the destiny of humankind.

These last interventions can different forms. One is that he can do nothing to prevent a pandemic like the Black Plague. Another is that he can stop a pandemic from spreading at a time it would direct humankind in the wrong direction. He is going to do nothing to stop the pending die-off which has already started but people are ignoring it and will ignore it until too late.

Most big interventions look natural. The extinction of the dinosaurs is an example.

Note that my hypothesis of God being part of the virtual reality means that God has limitations as does Satan. The Infinite Intelligence can allow God to do just about anything, and know just about anything, so my hypothesis does not interfere with how religions view God. It does explain the limitations of God despite his enormous ability to be powerful and all knowing. It explains why evil exists in the form of Satan.

I experienced the Infinite Intelligence when I was in my twenties. My studies of various religions recently made me aware of the Hindu concept of Brahman which is similar.

I also experienced being judged after death. I learned there is no argument. All is known. Once I was sent back because I was lacking achievement (either good or bad). The other time I was terminated permanently (but woke the next morning because it was a lesson). The lesson here is that souls are not necessarily eternal. Having experienced death twice in my dreams (painful sword in the neck and sword in the gut), I guess that re-incarnation of souls is possible. Re-incarnation makes sense. Souls evolve as species evolve. Otherwise there would be enormous number of souls just hanging around. Even with reincarnation, people should follow the teachings of Jesus and not look down upon a suffering person as one being taught Karma.

The souls direct the growing spirit to guide the growing physical.  One does not come back in a lesser form. This is needed for the formation of the brain which cannot follow genetic code to form the structures needed. Simply too complex. The soul does the fine tuning and detail, and does some subtle influence throughout life. That quiet voice or that intuition at times.

Suffering is thus temporary. Even the death of children or babies means the soul gets another chance.

You can start a new religion since your doctrines are significantly different than any religion that I know.

[CliveG]

[snip]
You can start a new religion since your doctrines are significantly different than any religion that I know.

Nothing that I have said has not been said by others at some time or another. I said that all religions have some truth. They should be more tolerant of each other.

[hamdani yusuf]

[snip]
You can start a new religion since your doctrines are significantly different than any religion that I know.

Nothing that I have said has not been said by others at some time or another. I said that all religions have some truth. They should be more tolerant of each other.

That's also true for currently existing religions. They picked parts of older religion's believes and their contemporary cultures and then combined to form new belief systems.

[CliveG]

[snip]
You can start a new religion since your doctrines are significantly different than any religion that I know.

Nothing that I have said has not been said by others at some time or another. I said that all religions have some truth. They should be more tolerant of each other.

That's also true for currently existing religions. They picked parts of older religion's believes and their contemporary cultures and then combined to form new belief systems.

Very true. Animism came first where spirit infused everything - Shaman as leader/spirit guide. The Native Americans have Great Spirit but are Shamanistic. The Greeks, Romans and Viking came up with families of Gods. The Zoroastrians came up with one God. There was interaction between them and Hindus. The Jews borrowed from the Zoroastrians during their captivity under them. The Christians added to the Old Testament and had the Council of Nicea vote that Jesus was God so that Rome could accept the religion. Islam used the Old and New Testaments for the religious part (Jesus being the greatest prophet but not God) and added rules for society. Buddha taught a way of life (not a religion). Confucius did the same. The Tao was also a way of life. Buddhism took elements from Hinduism and spread as a religion to Tibet, China, and Japan. Zen Buddhism is a meditative art and Shinto (animism) is still the state religion in Japan. The Aztecs and Incas had many gods attached to various entities including celestial objects - they too borrowed.

I find that there are times that the Sun seems to symbolize the presence to God, so it is not far fetched to worship the Sun as the physical embodiment of God.

I was driving to a hospital to visit people who had a relative in hospital with terminal cancer. As I came over the bridge, there was an unusual break in the clouds letting the sun stream down. The radio played "A Whiter Shade of Pale". I checked the time and was certain the person had just died. It was so. These are omens and signs.

There are demons. I went on a course where a young man was possessed by one. My late wife saw the black shadow on his left shoulder. The man got angry and violent at times. He could not understand why his wife and children feared him. I was on a deck holding a short stabbing spear and a war club. I had said that words were stronger than the sword. He got angry at this and tried to take the weapons from me. I resisted and the demon said to me "Kill him". He backed off as I stood my ground. When his turn came to take the weapons he was not allowed to. But I goaded and mocked him as he went through a series of Pilates moves.

Months later we chanced to meet him and his family. He came to me and thanked me for changing his life with the confrontation. His family were now close to him. His wife said that he came back a different man and she thanked me also. The demon was gone.

[stivemorgan]

Hi there. Very interesting question. I would like to have some proof of God existing. But be careful with such questions. Some god believers can be angry )

[Hayseed]

The problem with proof, is conviction.  What would you do if you found proof or was given proof?

What would you think of yourself?  Would you change and Worship?  Would all your family and friends? What if you were aware of the truth and still envied this world?   Many have.

What if you showed this proof to the world?   How would the world react?   Proof and truth are denied all the time, it's a human only character.  How many would ignore the spirit of the truth and become fanatical of obeying it.....their version of the truth.  Knowing humans.....there will be versions of this proof.

When the PROOF comes, a sword comes with it.

[CliveG]

Hi there. Very interesting question. I would like to have some proof of God existing. But be careful with such questions. Some god believers can be angry )

Yes, the opening post was quite provocative. We would all like proof that God existed. So why does he insist (if he/she exists) on remaining unprovable. There is a difference between hidden and unprovable. Provable means that most people would accept as a certainty that God existed. Hidden means that people are not aware of his existence. It seems he remains hidden from some and not from others.

The problem is that if one is skeptical (such as myself) I am not totally convinced (self-proof) of his existence despite quite a lot of events that should leave most with little doubt. I have seen how reality can distort and that one doubts what one perceives in various ways - mostly sight and sound. Even when there is a group of people testifying to the same thing, there is the question of mass illusion.

I am left to assign a probability to God's existence. This is based on two factors. Is my overall belief logically consistent - that is, can it stand the test of others trying to point out contradictions. I believe it can. My belief is based on an assumption that God and his plane of existence would be logical.

The second factor is can one explain the various psychic events using the laws of physics - and I find that one cannot. Most events took place under very calm circumstances, although a couple of them were decidedly unusual - which only added to the strangeness.

The movie "The Matrix" has quite a few things in the story line that seem to be based on the world as we know it. The "deje vu" moment or glitch is one of them. An inconsistency and weirdness. The problem is one cannot test these happenings because they are random and infrequent.

One should ask why God choose to remain unproven. The answer is that humankind would behave quite differently. Some would resign themselves to fate instead of fighting to fix things. I know a family with two teenage daughters who sold everything and waited for God to provide. Friends eventually got tired of supporting them and they realized "God helps those who help themselves". One daughter made a piece of pottery to sell. It was a multi-coloured mini-animal that had strange but cute features. The demand grew and the money rolled in.

I think I see the plan that God has for me, but it is uncertain and filled with twists and turns. But each time I learn a lesson and I think the end result will be what it is supposed to be. But it may not - and may just be my imagination and desires. Still, I work towards the end goal.

You are right correct about people getting upset when their beliefs are challenged. The problem is that humans work towards having an internally consistent picture of things. Inconsistencies are rationalized in some way. But if a basic tenet of their belief system can be shown to be in serious contradiction to another basic tenet, then something has to change. Some people undergo radical change, or go into denial, or make another rationalization.

Take the problem with our physics. One theory works for very small and one for very large. This is an inconsistency. Scientists deal with this by saying we will eventually work out an answer. Believers in God say much the same thing. Proof is in the future.

The existence of dark matter and dark energy is another anomaly. They have been invented to explain observations that do not obey the known laws of physics. God is the explanation for things that also should not happen naturally. Healing of some people is one.

I have a question. What is God going to do about climate change? Is he going to intervene? Surely he would not let humankind destroy themselves and the planet?

[CliveG]

The problem with proof, is conviction.  What would you do if you found proof or was given proof?

What would you think of yourself?  Would you change and Worship?  Would all your family and friends? What if you were aware of the truth and still envied this world?   Many have.

What if you showed this proof to the world?   How would the world react?   Proof and truth are denied all the time, it's a human only character.  How many would ignore the spirit of the truth and become fanatical of obeying it.....their version of the truth.  Knowing humans.....there will be versions of this proof.

When the PROOF comes, a sword comes with it.

Nice post. I dealt with some issues in the post before this one.

Proof to many is a scientifically repeatable experiment that is available to anyone and everyone. For example - one says "God, if you exist, lift me up 3 feet off the floor." And lo and behold, it happens. Breaking the laws of physics on demand.

Or put a "prophet" into a sealed room and have him come out with stone tablets with commands on them. This will create doubt unless repeated over and over. And even then there will be the naysayers. Uri Geller was an example of a fake and a fraud who used his wealth to silence opponents. Truly bending metal on demand is not possible. But people want to believe it is not just a trick.

It will not happen. Even if it did, people would then want to know what God expects of them. And this is your variations that one sees in different religions. Often based on what one man says has been revealed to him. The only way out of that is for God to immediately punish an action that is not part of his wishes. So what does God want? Perhaps part of his plan was variation in religion to keep life interesting. And give each religion a piece of the truth.

The punishment of the Aztecs for their human sacrifice was extinction so there might be general influences on doing "the right moral thing". It is often the people in power who make decisions that are not "good", and in fact could be interpreted as being evil despite their affirmations of good intent. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Personally, my experience has been that one does not need a ritual to achieve a psychic result. One needs the intention. My late wife ran a event that changed criminals and violent men into law-abiding citizens. It took only four days. There was some ritual for effect but people were asked to appeal to a Higher Power - whatever that power was. Some were Christian and some had ancestor beliefs. And other religions. It did not matter. The stories of their change were quite startling. The event had a 80% success rate. Like the AA, people had to want to change and were desperate for that change. The reputation of the course was a powerful incentive.

I use Tarot cards now and then. Mostly to help a person with a decision. They are quite accurate for me. One gets the answer one needs, not the answer that might be correct. Once I told a woman I did not know (just a fun afternoon of reading for various people in a group) that the cards said that she hated her husband. I knew the others in the group and said that the cards were probably wrong, and that there might be an influence from a family member that was going through a bitter divorce. She was silent and said nothing. Two weeks later she left her husband and two children. She did indeed hate him but was suppressing it. I did not sense it like a cold reading. The cards and the layout left little doubt. Arranging a deck while shuffling would be against the laws of physics but not so one would notice it. And it leaves plenty of room for doubt.

Then people will want proof that Satan exists. The rabbit hole goes deeper.

[Europan Ocean]

The problem with proof, is conviction.  What would you do if you found proof or was given proof?

What would you think of yourself?  Would you change and Worship?  Would all your family and friends? What if you were aware of the truth and still envied this world?   Many have.

What if you showed this proof to the world?   How would the world react?   Proof and truth are denied all the time, it's a human only character.  How many would ignore the spirit of the truth and become fanatical of obeying it.....their version of the truth.  Knowing humans.....there will be versions of this proof.

When the PROOF comes, a sword comes with it.

God is transcendent to the universe. His presences fills and surpasses the universe and multiverse. Black holes do not drag or crush him, stars do not burn him, foul things do not stain him... he is, they are inert.

The universe is vast, the multiverse a greater idea, does it matter how big God has to be? Either one or the other is self existent. There is beauty, vastness and order.

It is up to us, now well past the renaissance to be civil, and do better at helping northern Ireland rather than making new infights. The big churches are new orders prioritising peace and good will and unity.

[InTheEnd]

There is nothing in science that denies the existence of God. What denies the existence of God is the philosophical idea that things happen by chance.

[CliveG]

There is nothing in science that denies the existence of God. What denies the existence of God is the philosophical idea that things happen by chance.

Very nicely summed up. Some in the scientific community try to use logical argument to demonstrate contradiction in mainstream religion - mostly Christian. Some say that "unprovable" is the same as non-existence - which denies personal experience.

Science recognizes everything as having a cause except the prime cause. "Chance" and "nothing" are not examples of prime causes. The Ultimate Intelligence that I hypothesized (and experienced) is a logical prime cause - and God is a logical consequence. Such a hypothesis does not diminish God. Simply rationalizes and removes inconsistencies. He can still have almost all the attributes and be the "Creator" of the known universe.

[matross]

The laws of Newton would be broken every time god acted.

[CliveG]

The laws of Newton would be broken every time god acted.

The Laws of Newton and every other law of physics would be broken every time God acted.

The laws are there and are consistent all other times - which is nearly all the time. And when God acts, very few are aware aware that the laws have been broken.

God acts in ways that seem to be "natural" even when they seem miraculous. Example - a person has a 10 percent chance of beating a lung cancer. Lots of prayers, and the the person survives. Did God intervene, or was the patient simply one of the lucky 10 percenters?

At the moment, we are overdue for a global pandemic. Why has it not happened? Is God delaying it by subtle interventions that prevent a calamitous spread? The interventions required are on such a small and unseen scale we cannot know. I reckon God is allowing a slow thinning of the population to give humankind time to adjust to a new reality. The slow thinning is cell phone radiation degrading immune systems, increasing infertility and leading to a lower life expectancy.

If we are just illusions in the mind of an Ultimate Intelligence, then the whole trajectory of evolution from the Big Bang forwards is all playing out according to the design. Of course, the design could in the gazillionth revision as the Ultimate Intelligence sees the initial choices of key universal constants as flawed - eg too much expansion or too little expansion. Hence Intelligent Design. As an engineer I know that one cannot simply revise a design with a fatal flaw. One scraps it and starts again.

God is there to guide the trajectory in the desired direction and Satan is there to add some random variables (if we did not have random mutations, evolution would not take place). Satan adds the entertainment and stops the "game" from being boring.