those things wouldn't really be magic then, now would they? some people, who don't understnad them, might look at them as magic, even though it makes perfect scientific sense to whoever is performing it.

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Originally posted by Beany:
Well who ever said it was magic?
For all you know it could very well be completely scientific, but it's just so complex that we are unable to understand its workings
And while we are on the subject, who's to say that even magic isn't scientific.
Maybe the human mind is a lot more powerful than you think, and can perform what people will refer to as magic but in actual fact it is just science that we don't understand.

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With logic like that, it's no wonder people still believe in leprechauns and spontaneous generation.

Using the "we don't understand" argument to attempt to validate a belief. An argument from silence (no strong evidence where we might expect it to be found yet if the hypothesis is true).

This is the only approach useful for dealing with hypotheses that cannot be disproved, such as 'there's an invisible elephant in my living room'. If all non-visual tests fail to reveal the elephant and require ad hoc rationalizations such as 'he's also weightless and doesn't leave footprints' it becomes evidence against its existence.

I like the way you avoided the main point Bogey.
Basically your agreeing with what i said. That the magic you refer to doesn't actually exist, but what we would all believe to be magic is actually science that we don't understand. A child would think pulling a rabbit out of a hat is magic, but we know it's just science they are unaware of. What i'm saying is that God is science that we don't understand and therefore many presume it's some kind of fairy story.


And Dark, your kinda morphing my point. I'm not using the 'we don't understand' to validate my beliefs at all. I'm using it to suggest the complexity of the science that would mean God wouldn't be magic or a fairy tale myth like Bogey suggested it was.

What i'm saying is that God may not be 'magic' or any kind of fairy tale myth (as many none believers seem to think), but instead is purely scientific, but only God himself has the ability to understand himself.

Also if you read any of the last few post you wouldn't be putting the passage about invisible elephants. It's true there would be no clues in the slightest that suggest the elephant exists, but as for God there are plenty. Ie: The universe, consciousness, love, compassion, living matter, etc.
Science has so far been unable to answer many of the questions, such as how did time begin? And it is impossible for the question to be answered without God.


And Nietzsche, i'll attempt to answer your question but it's gonna be long, since it's a mighty deep question. I just need time to write it.

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Originally posted by Beany:
You can either not believe God exists or Believe he does exists (or consider it a possibility anyway).
It seems that the people who don't believe in his existence only ever concentrates on reasons as to why he can't exist, and then it's as if their opinions are written in stone and that they only change if they have a spiritual experience. It's only natural to do this, but have you ever thought about ways in which he can exist.
Since seriously contemplating Gods existence i've been amazed at the answers ive found about life, which can only be possible with the existence of God. The things Ive realised explains how races of people (before having contact with other races) have come to have very similar beliefs, also how those beliefs have been misunderstood.
There is so much that begins to makes sense if you only accept the possibility.
And life really is so much more interesting when you believe and understand.

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Gday all, Jesus said "God is whatever you serve". He also said that if one gives His teachings a go then you will find out for yourself whether they are true or not. So God can be many things to many people, for me God is a God of help. God is expressed in the lives and actions of all those who selflessly help others without thoughts of personal reward.

Beyond that God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. God seeks those who will worship in this way, He seeks those who are concerned with helping eachother and who are only interested in the truth.

What is truth? Like God many different things to many different people, as long as one is true to oneself!

Ok well I�m not saying that God exists period. I admit that there's a chance he might not, given all the evidence I'm saying that he most likely does. And there is no chance that I can prove it, but I�ll tell you a bit of what I think anyway.

First of all you need to know what I think God is.
Basically I say that he is everything that could possibly ever exist, and he is the infinite sized mind that exists within and 'out' of everything.
From this I could prove that he exists by saying '1: He is everything that exists 2: you know that everything that exists, exists 3: Therefore God exists. But I agree that's pretty weak, especially since it doesn't prove that there is a mind behind it all.

There must however be a mind behind all that exists, because if there wasn't, how would life know how to go about existing. Everything that exists can be broken down. Take a human being. A person is made up of organs, blood muscles etc, and those organs such as a 'heart' are made up of atriums, blood, veins etc. Those can be broken down into proteins, then into atoms, then into neutrons and protons, then into quarks etc. You can go so deep and then you will reach something that cannot be broken down any more, which is pure energy. Everything that exists is made up of this energy, which bundles together and alters its vibrations to make up matter. When you look at a stone it is just energy that is compressed to a certain level and vibrating at a certain level. And this is the same with everything. Everything in the universe is made up of energy. The question is how does the energy know how to move and react? A computer programme needs the mind of a programmer to tell it how to work and behave; otherwise it just doesn't do anything. Well surely energy needs to know how to behave, and God is the mind that tells it how to work. As I said before, if energy had no kind of mental instructions, then life would be like a TV screen with no reception.

Now the fact that we ourselves have a mind also suggests that there is God. No matter how complex a brain is, all it does is just follow instructions, (you could say that it's like a very complex robot). It cannot make decisions because just like a robot, it only follows the set rules that it's been given. Yet we have a mind that exists beyond the brain, which can change its programmed rules, and do what a complex robot can't ever do, and that is to decide our own destiny. What purpose is there for a mind? Surely we would live a more safe and peaceful existence if we only followed set rules of our brains that would ensure our happiness, safety and survival, but instead we have the ability to decide what we do, and what we experience, despite the fact that it can be hazardous to our survival and make us completely miserable. So why is there a need for the mind?
I believe the reason we have a mind is so that we can experience life, how we choose to experience it, and since our ideas of life is made up of how we personally perceive life, then you could say that we are experiencing ourselves.
So where did the mind come from, and where did the idea of wanting to experience ourselves come from?
The mind cannot be in any way physical because it is impossible to be viewed by any of the senses, so if anything it must be spiritual. You can view mind using your sixth sense (if it exists), but that is only mind communicating with mind that both exist on the spiritual plain.
Now one of the main arguments about God is that you can never prove he exists, but you can never prove that a mind exists, because if you were unaware of human behaviour, you would simply view humans as very complex robots, but we put faith in the fact that they have a mind despite the only evidence we have is that we ourselves have one. Now why should we be so arrogant as to believe that we are the only things capable of having a mind?
If we were the only things to have a mind, then surely we would be the most advanced beings in existence, but look at us. We don�t get along in the slightest, nature gets along far better than we do, so it brings me to the conclusion that it also has a mind, but the mind of nature is Godly.

Well ill leave this here, if you don�t understand what I�ve put here then there is no point spending time writing about how or why i think god exists.


[This message has been edited by Beany (edited 08-11-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Beany (edited 08-11-2002).]

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Originally posted by Beany:
I like the way you avoided the main point Bogey.
Basically your agreeing with what i said. That the magic you refer to doesn't actually exist, but what we would all believe to be magic is actually science that we don't understand. A child would think pulling a rabbit out of a hat is magic, but we know it's just science they are unaware of. What i'm saying is that God is science that we don't understand and therefore many presume it's some kind of fairy story.

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I apologize, I didn't realize there was a point to evade.

Science is only a tip of the iceberg for why I don't believe in God. A God would go against my personal, obsessive compulsive, principles.

and I wasn't being serious when I said magic, I was using it as a comparison.