Why should you take anyones word for anything? You have your own mind, Use it. Or at least give it a good shot!! All I pointed out was your logical thought process is based on a point of reference which is based on your limited perspective of life. ie your 3 dimensional existence. Your mind finds it very difficult to comprehend anything that is not bound by your 3D physical point of reference. As an example, in the dark ages people thought the world was flat or the earth was the center of the universe!! In fact individuals got killed for stating otherwise. The majority were applying logic to the wrong frame of reference thus deriving the wrong absolute laws such as the world is flat. Another example would be the existence of Gluons?! We've never measured these "particles", we can't see them, yet we know they exist because of the effect they exert on other observable particles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon <a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/9206/gluonsid3.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a> I usually try to refrain from debating this topic since most people are never able to grasp the basic concepts to build their overall broader perspective. I only made an effort because of the poster who was busy posting utter nonesense, trying to derive the non-existence of God based on books written by humans several thousand years ago.
Your definition of "existence" probably means "something I can touch,see or feel, failing that something I can measure" ? That's why I repeatedly tried to use the analogy to magnetic fields. and lastly the world is neither black nor white. It's infinite shades of gray. <a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/406/colorsmf1.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>
i have used my mind to think through everything you have said. my mind tells me you are full of bs. i will ask you the same thing i ask biblegod believers. do you have any evidence for anything you believe or is it all based on faith? "The very concept of faith is an insult to human intelligence. If you take something on faith, you are in effect saying, "I don't need evidence, facts, or logic. Evidence is worthless, facts are for ninnies, logic is nonsense. I'll believe whatever I want even if reality overwhelmingly shows that it's just not true."
If you noticed did not mention faith even one time. This has nothing to do with faith, but everything to do with the application of logic using the correct frame of reference. Faith is for the primitive mind. It's like when your mother tells you not to touch the hot stove when you were a child, yet you went ahead and touched it and got burned. So based on that experience, the next time when your mother tells you not to do something, you think twice, because based on prior experience you now have "faith" that whatever your mother tells you is framed from a point of reference that has your welfare in mind. I will be back later if you want to discuss this further.
no thanks. its all nonsense. if you expect me to believe something there isnt a shred of evidence for, you are asking me to take your word on faith. a better discription of faith would be this: "Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith."
You're not "hearing" me very well. ( Based on your responses, I suspect you're more of an Auditory than visual individual ) If your intellect isn't yet mature enough to grasp the fundamental contruct of a living Concious energy ( what do you think the Soul is ? but then again you have to belive in a soul first before you can pose the question of what it is ) , what makes you think the logic that follows from such an intellect will lead to the correct conclusions. Let's forget the discussion on the construct of God for a minute. I pose the following question: What is the correct process of approaching a Problem so that the correct solution maybe derived? Most people frame the problem to be solved within the framework of their past experience. Therefore the past prejudices become part of the framing the questions that lead to the wrong answers to the problem. Past prejudices ------> impact the Question ----> applied to the Problem ----> Solution is adulterated by past prejudice ( hence incorrect solution ) When in fact, the correct approach to solving a problem would be to FIRST BE AWARE of your pre-existing prejudices, then CONCIOUSLY ELIMINATING these prejudices before posing the Question. Therefore the correct process would be Be aware of Past prejudices ----> Conciously ELIMINATE the prejudice ----> now frame the question ( free of impurity) -----> Apply to the Problem ---> Solution is much more pure. At this stage I think you're still stuck in your mental angst of how others are blindly using faith to answer the question of Gods existence. This conflict in logic leads you to reframe all your Questions to be based on your contempt of those who belive in God blindly. ( you don't bother to differentiate between the different processes as they seem the same to you. When in fact they are not!! ) Therefore your angst and disdain that supposedly logical people ( herein you make the first mistake. Most people ARE NOT Logical!! ) should arrive to answering a question of huge magnitude using a process as trivial and primitive as "blind faith" adulterates how you frame the question and this will lead you to the incorrect answer every time.
its simple. you formulate an idea in your mind then you look for evidence to validate your idea. then you devise a test to test the possibility that your evidence may be wrong. if you think your test is sucessful then you have your results peer reviewed. if other people can not duplicate your results your idea is wrong. believers in whatever religion always omit the evidence and testing parts and insert emotions and testimony in its place.
In that case you have repeatedly mislead yourself. Jumping to conclusions based upon incorrect assumptions you could easily check out, is not in my view, the best way to understand anything much. My definition of existence is not -somethings- at all. You cannot define things into existence. They either exist or they do not exist. When you talk of a magnetic field, a gray scale, or a 'Supra-Concious energy construct' (whatever that may be) or God , first off you presuppose Existence for all of those things. The quality of Existence is what they must have. An ability to have Existence is what they all require. You said... "..break matter down further? eventually you reach a sub-sub-atomic level whose boundary lies between physical existence and non-existence." Well, I say that is patently not so, and I pointed out to you why. Your response was "It's infinite shades of gray." In this regard you are wrong to say the world is neither black or white. In this context there is only black and white. It applies to the World, the Universe, the Cosmos, Everything. When you talk of God or Supra-Conscious thingies, you presuppose Existence for those things first, and therefore Existence is THE primary imperative. There is no in-between. God cannot Exist without Existence.
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2282/gluonsuq3.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a> You guys can sit around and play with yourselves. I think I'm done here.