Computer Scientists Prove God Exists

[dank]

As far as I'm concerned, gods have to prove their existence to me if they want me to believe in them, not the other way round, this looks a lot like fake or very dodgy science to me to make it seem that religious people are correct.

Doesn't that defy the point of a God though? Once a God proves its existence then belief goes out the window.

If you saw god, you would only believe more.

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[yogi]

As far as I'm concerned, gods have to prove their existence to me if they want me to believe in them, not the other way round, this looks a lot like fake or very dodgy science to me to make it seem that religious people are correct.

Doesn't that defy the point of a God though? Once a God proves its existence then belief goes out the window.

If you saw god, you would only believe more.

Do you believe it's possible to hallucinate something which isn't real?

[blablahblah]

As far as I'm concerned, gods have to prove their existence to me if they want me to believe in them, not the other way round, this looks a lot like fake or very dodgy science to me to make it seem that religious people are correct.

Doesn't that defy the point of a God though? Once a God proves its existence then belief goes out the window.

If you saw god, you would only believe more.

Do you believe it's possible to hallucinate something which isn't real?

Imagine a shiny blue coloured cube, roughly the size of a baseball or grapefruit. Now imagine that the pointy corners have been dipped in red paint.

Now ask yourself: why did that cube appear in front of your eyes -- the same place where you're only supposed to see 'real' things? This shows that we must already be using our imagination to "see the real world".

[yogi]

Imagine a shiny blue coloured cube, roughly the size of a baseball or grapefruit. Now imagine that the pointy corners have been dipped in red paint.

Now ask yourself: why did that cube appear in front of your eyes -- the same place where you're only supposed to see 'real' things? This shows that we must already be using our imagination to "see the real world".

True, but none the less, the cube is still imaginary.

[BitChick]

Some of you guys are really making me regret starting this thread now.    Can you seriously think that drugs are a good thing???

Sure, drugs, like many things, can be fun for a season but they kill and destroy people's lives.  It causes many people to steal, or lose or waste all of the money they have and often friends and family lose trust in them and often people eventually die of overdoses or have serious brain damage.  There are just so many negative consequences of going down that road.

Drugs are a cheap substitute of what God alone can give.  The Bible says, "Do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit."  People chase after these things, using drugs and/or alcohol but nothing satisfies like God's Spirit.  

You can brag about all the great things drugs have done in your life, or how it makes your life better right now, but let me know how that works for you in a few years.  I can't name anyone who after 10 years of doing drugs can honestly say that they made their life better and more healthy and fulfilled.  Find just one person.  

[yogi]

Most religions use drugs in some way during their practices. This is to encourage irrational thought and help convince themselves that their superstitions are true. This is most obvious in primitive religions where the practitioners enter into a fully intoxicated state and experience hallucinations. These hallucinations they assume to be divine in origin. As well as drugs, many other techniques are used by religions and cults in order to discourage rational thought, such as repeated chanting and/or the telling of hypnotic stories.

[the joint]

Most religions use drugs in some way during their practices. This is to encourage irrational thought and help convince themselves that their superstitions are true. This is most obvious in primitive religions where the practitioners enter into a fully intoxicated state and experience hallucinations. These hallucinations they assume to be divine in origin. As well as drugs, many other techniques are used by religions and cults in order to discourage rational thought, such as repeated chanting and/or the telling of hypnotic stories.

You might want to rethink this a bit.  Observational studies of the use of hallucinogenic substances by various tribal communities suggest that, in at least some cases, the user is able to acquire certain factual information that is verifiable.  For example, certain tribes claim these substances allow them to communicate with spirits who might teach the user something about botany or spirituality.  Referring to 'botany' as an example, it's also been documented that scientists in general can't figure out why some of these tribes seem to have so much understanding of botany (e.g. which plants are poisonous, which are medicinal, and which ones you can mix together to effect a certain reaction).  A vast amount of  knowledge about pharmaceutical ingredients used in the Western world comes directly from tribal knowledge -- that is, Western scientists frequently visit these tribal cultures to learn from them.

[darkmule]

Most religions use drugs in some way during their practices.

Most societies use drugs in some way.

And actually, most fundamentalist religions strongly discourage the use of drugs, since their own practices often rely on nobody in the religion having any alternative way to get high.  So, like Pentecostalists, their only buzz is going into something like an epileptic seizure while rolling around on the ground spastically and "speaking tongues." 

If they had a better way of getting a buzz, they probably wouldn't be into spazzing out and flipping around on the floor screaming gibberish.

The same could be said of the 9/11 terrorists, all in an Islamic offshoot that forbade them from just getting drunk or high.  So their buzz was knocking down the Twin Towers. 

[yogi]

Most religions use drugs in some way during their practices.

Most societies use drugs in some way.

And actually, most fundamentalist religions strongly discourage the use of drugs, since their own practices often rely on nobody in the religion having any alternative way to get high.  So, like Pentecostalists, their only buzz is going into something like an epileptic seizure while rolling around on the ground spastically and "speaking tongues." 

If they had a better way of getting a buzz, they probably wouldn't be into spazzing out and flipping around on the floor screaming gibberish.

The same could be said of the 9/11 terrorists, all in an Islamic offshoot that forbade them from just getting drunk or high.  So their buzz was knocking down the Twin Towers. 

Totally agree, anything that puts the subject into an irrational state of mind can be use for the purposes of mind control. 

[dank]

As far as I'm concerned, gods have to prove their existence to me if they want me to believe in them, not the other way round, this looks a lot like fake or very dodgy science to me to make it seem that religious people are correct.

Doesn't that defy the point of a God though? Once a God proves its existence then belief goes out the window.

If you saw god, you would only believe more.

Do you believe it's possible to hallucinate something which isn't real?

Everything is a hallucination, either nothing is real or everything is real.

[dank]

Some of you guys are really making me regret starting this thread now.    Can you seriously think that drugs are a good thing???

Sure, drugs, like many things, can be fun for a season but they kill and destroy people's lives.  It causes many people to steal, or lose or waste all of the money they have and often friends and family lose trust in them and often people eventually die of overdoses or have serious brain damage.  There are just so many negative consequences of going down that road.

Drugs are a cheap substitute of what God alone can give.  The Bible says, "Do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit."  People chase after these things, using drugs and/or alcohol but nothing satisfies like God's Spirit.  

You can brag about all the great things drugs have done in your life, or how it makes your life better right now, but let me know how that works for you in a few years.  I can't name anyone who after 10 years of doing drugs can honestly say that they made their life better and more healthy and fulfilled.  Find just one person.

I'll be honest, I don't think drugs are a good thing necessarily.  They are simply a tool, they are neutral.  Some way more negative than others.  They can be used positively and negatively, but the key thing happening when they're consumed is a change in consciousness, perception.  Whether that shift is a positive thing, only you can decide.

One thing to recognize about psychedelics above all else, they do give you a direct connection to the spirit, they do raise the frequency of your being and connect you to a state of universal reception of all channels of god, in other words, imagine your radio could pick up every single station on earth at the same time, and you could understand it.

I do not mean to shift the topic to drugs, though I think psychedelics specifically are very much related to god's existence as they bring you into a state of unity, they are how I found god after all.

[Rassah]

Everything is a hallucination, either nothing is real or everything is real.

So explain to me why you can't hallucinate money to pay off your debts, or hallucinate yourself a new car or motorcycle? Or does this mean that nothing in the universe is real?

[dank]

I have hallucinated me riding on a motorcycle, thank you very much.

Maybe money's not as important as bringing people peace.

[the joint]

Everything is a hallucination, either nothing is real or everything is real.

So explain to me why you can't hallucinate money to pay off your debts, or hallucinate yourself a new car or motorcycle? Or does this mean that nothing in the universe is real?

I once knew a guy who practiced various types of meditation.  He was very serious about it to the point of doing several hours per day for years on end.  He also claims he systematically taught himself to lucid dream.  He claims that one time he somehow woke up from his dream wearing a shirt that he created in his lucid dream.  While I can't in any way verify this claim and would tend to believe it's false, nothing else about this guy gave me any indication that he was crazy or a whacko, and in fact he was a good musical composer and highly skilled in martial arts (he practiced fracture training to build up his bone density and toughness).

Edit:  While I'm not asserting that the guy's claim is true, I think it's worth considering that you have probably never known anyone who has committed literally thousands or tens of thousands of hours to mental training.  If you stick a bodybuilder next to a regular guy, everybody and anybody will automatically recognize the bodybuilder as a superior physical specimen capable of feats of strength and endurance (e.g. dead-lifting a car) that the regular guy would consider impossible.  Isolating this information, it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

[Vod]

it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

So you are saying if I train my cat for hours a day, I can teach him to play chess? 

[the joint]

it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

So you are saying if I train my cat for hours a day, I can teach him to play chess?  

Is this a serious question?  If so, it's not quite analogous as you're interjecting a 2nd subject into the mix, and this interjection requires certain assumtions about the metal capacity of the cat.

It's obviously established that mental processes affect our physical bodies which can then indirectly affect physical phenomena outside of bodies (e.g. I think about moving my hand, and so I do, thus turning the key to start my car which then enables me to drive where I please).  But is it possible to turn the key directly through mental processes rather than indirectly by first moving my body?  I'd say it's plausible.

[Vod]

it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

So you are saying if I train my cat for hours a day, I can teach him to play chess?  

Is this a serious question?  If so, it's not quite analogous as you're interjecting a 2nd subject into the mix, and this interjection requires certain assumtions about the metal capacity of the cat.

It's obviously established that mental processes affect our physical bodies which can then indirectly affect physical phenomena outside of bodies (e.g. I think about moving my hand, and so I do, thus turning the key to start my car which then enables me to drive where I please).  But is it possible to turn the key directly through mental processes rather than indirectly by first moving my body?  I'd say it's plausible.

It was a tounge in cheek question.  We know a cat doesn't have the brain ability to play chess no matter what you teach it.  What makes you think a human has the ability to move objects just by thought, no matter how much you train?

Anyone who can prove they can do so will earn an easy million dollars.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

[NewLiberty]

it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

So you are saying if I train my cat for hours a day, I can teach him to play chess?  

You might settle for training cat to walk across the board without knocking over any pieces?

[the joint]

it's plausible to assume that someone who commits to training their mind with a duration and intensity similar to a bodybuilder may be capable of performing feats of the mind that the average person would think is impossible (e.g. directly extending the effects of mental processes upon physical phenomena beyond your own body).

So you are saying if I train my cat for hours a day, I can teach him to play chess?  

Is this a serious question?  If so, it's not quite analogous as you're interjecting a 2nd subject into the mix, and this interjection requires certain assumtions about the metal capacity of the cat.

It's obviously established that mental processes affect our physical bodies which can then indirectly affect physical phenomena outside of bodies (e.g. I think about moving my hand, and so I do, thus turning the key to start my car which then enables me to drive where I please).  But is it possible to turn the key directly through mental processes rather than indirectly by first moving my body?  I'd say it's plausible.

It was a tounge in cheek question.  We know a cat doesn't have the brain ability to play chess no matter what you teach it.  What makes you think a human has the ability to move objects just by thought, no matter how much you train?

Anyone who can prove they can do so will earn an easy million dollars.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Referring to the bolded section. it's already known that thought can directly move objects (your body is an object).  It's also already known that thought can indirectly move objects outside of the body (e.g. thought -->  arm moves -- > key turns --> car starts).

So, your question is better rephrased as, "What makes you think a human has the ability to directly move objects beyond the body's structural limits?"  And, I think it's plausible because of what we already know of certain effects that thought processes have on physical phenomena.  It's not a sound conclusion by any means, but I think it's also unsound to conclude it's implausible.

[Kouye]

"What makes you think a human has the ability to directly move objects beyond the body's structural limits?"

The brain produces a magnetic field. It thus does moves "stuff" beyond the body's structural limits.
Unless you consider this magnetic field as a part of the structural being. In which case a more detailed definition of "structural limits" would be useful.