"spirits"... human, the Holy Spirit, ghosts and demons: is there such thing as a spirit?

[Myrkhoos]

        1. It really depends on the definition of that word. It usually implies some sort of bodiless mind or a very subtle hard to perceive being, or one that has the power to appear, change form, dissapear. I think it has to do a lot with our innate search for cause and effect and agency in the phenomena around coupled with projecting family/political dynamic upon the larger universe.

         2. I do not think religions cause wars, humans do. As well as charity. People have saved other people for Jesus, people have kilked other people for Jesus. People have helped each other BECAUSE there is no supernatural help coming, people have tortured others BECAUSE they did not expect any supernatural punishment. I have seen the same facts provoke radically different outcomes in people.

       3. As to your revelation in a monastery. Contemplative practices are documented ways to provoke hallucinations in people. I am not saying they ALWAYS do it, or that your visions, exp is not real. But if someone takes DMT abd says they saw Jesus because the DMT opebed thei 8th chakra or smth but I know DMT is a powerful hallucinogenic I tend to believe they were hallucinating. Isolation, fasting, vigils, exhausting physical exercise repetitive prayers, the incredible nervous tension associated with spiritual seeking are all ingredients in a potent hallucinogenic soup. Maybe did see God. Maybe DMT trips are actually a gate to the spiritual dimensions of life. But I cannot be certain of that and tend to holding temporary, until further evidence, opinion of them being experiences generated by human neurobiology. 

[Brothermario]

“Testable evidence”? As in putting God in a lab and dissecting him so you can come along afterwards and read the data, because you’re the truly intelligent person who sets the standard for proof?

 

Investigations of “Scripture”? As in God, the only necessary being, the only infinite being, the creator of everything, is best discovered by reading what human beings wrote about him?

 

”That word”? As in the search for God is a study in language?

 

Well ... you three human beings certainly have God, and me, all figured out.

 

It is important to figure out yourselves, too, you know?

 

So far, all you three human beings are telling me is that you like to read.

 

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that “God”, the divine being who you owe everything to and is found everywhere you look (the greatest revelation in any language of who God is) stays hidden from human beings looking down at books or straight ahead at their Google Machines.

 

In a word, “God” is not the confusing word and psychological phenomena “you” take him for.

[florduh]

52 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

In a word, “God” is not the confusing word and psychological phenomena “you” take him for.

How do you know that? It's a reasonable question because it appears you're just making shit up.

[alreadyGone]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

... I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that “God”, the divine being who you owe everything to and is found everywhere you look (the greatest revelation in any language of who God is) stays hidden from human beings looking down at books or straight ahead at their Google Machines.

 

In a word, “God” is not the confusing word and psychological phenomena “you” take him for.

 

"stays hidden from human beings looking down at books.."

Uhhh.

 

Seems that famous best-seller says otherwise. Repeatedly, as I recall.

 

 

 

 

[alreadyGone]

2 hours ago, Brothermario said:

... Well ... you three human beings certainly have God, and me, all figured out.

 

There's that phrase again.

It's something I began to notice as I lost my belief..

 

Christians are always eager to take on the hard work of being a witness and evangelizing for the divine team..  To help Jesus round up the strays of the flock.

 

If that proves to be too difficult, when the poor 'lost soul' won't just fall in and accept the good news, then that attitude begins to emerge, so very commonly expressed as "well..... you seem to have it all figured out!" .

 

What is that transition-point, that cliff-edge where the urgently evangelizing believer transitions from "I have to do my part here, Jesus expects me to help spread the Gospel, its proof of my immersion into the divine commission"

 

...to instead, a posture of "well... it you won't believe me, if you can't just accept what I'm telling you.. then I'll just make it clear to you with a passive-aggresive expression of disdain that you can just go to hell and enjoy the trip!" ?

 

I wish I had a tithe for every time I've heard almost the exact words from other well-meaning believers you've used here: "well, you seem to have it all figured out!".

I was slapped with that more than once in discussions which began with my admission that I do not know the reality of a sovereign God, true or not, that I am there seeking answers bounded in truth.

 

And this from well-meaning folk who are convinced that because they believe something so fervently, it simply must be true. And from there decide that they know the presence and reality, the mind and will of "God".

 

 

 

 

 

[Brothermario]

florduh, I would be the only person who could know that, and who wasn’t making shit up, because I’m the only one claiming a positive experience of God, and you and all others here are claiming a negative experience of God.

 

Saying something isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

 

I understand skeptics completely when they tell me that religion has not done it for them, and many religious persons they met were full of shit.

 

It’s the skeptics who seem to have no understanding whatsoever that to equate religion with God is bigotry and ignorance, not some great intellectual achievement.

 

I’ve never been a religious person, but I have also never been dumb enough to take the human elements of religion and judge God according to these elements.

 

To claim that God is impossible to know because human beings have so many differing opinions about God is a logical fallacy. Opinions are not experiences. Write for me the syllogism that supports such a claim.

 

No. You don’t have one. All you have is a collection of other skeptics with the same illogic.

[alreadyGone]

3 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

...I’ve never been a religious person, but I have also never been dumb enough to take the human elements of religion and judge God according to these elements.

 

And that... "you are judging God!"

I think a more honest expression of this sentiment would be "attempting to judge the reality, or not, of God".

 

A minister snapped at me a couple years ago, "..yet you would sit here and judge God!".

I could only respond that according to his closely-held belief it was I who was being judged, or slated to be judged.

I can't "judge God" if I have no belief in such a being. I can only attempt to judge the existence, the reality of God.

This I must do before I can sit in judgement of him, from any posture of rational judgement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brothermario]

alreadyGone, where do I write anything about being a “believer” in the religion of Christianity?

 

And you’ve spoken with many people who sacrificed years in a monastery?

 

You’re the person in a group of people repeating what each other “believes”.

 

Where’s your response to the metaphysical principle I gave to you, and you never heard before?

 

No. You’re the one trapped in a confused group of believers, severely limited intellectually.

 

I have two college degrees and firsthand experiences of God like you have only read about, and have never presented myself to you by telling you about my feelings or beliefs.

If you were a true skeptic, and not just a religious bigot, it would bother you that you can only see me in ways that define you instead.

[midniterider]

51 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

 

Saying something isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

 

 

Saying The Loch Ness Monster isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

Saying Spider Man isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

Saying The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

Saying The Invisible Pink Unicorn isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

Saying Russell's Teapot isn’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

Saying Leprechaun's aren’t true because you personally have not experienced the thing yourself is the very definition of making shit up.

 

 

 

[alreadyGone]

Brothermario,

I only pointed out my notice of how commonly these phrases are tossed around.

 

To my perception such things are interesting.

Interesting in how so many seem to rely on such attitudes of apparent disdain over the disbelief of others.

 

To my perception this is no different than the team attitudes that prevail among sports fans for example. My team vs your team.

Or the same allegiance of partisanship on the part of many regarding governance and matters usually labeled "politics".

 

I have not personally attacked you, and I would appreciate it if you can refrain from presenting the implication of such.

 

If it is your firm belief that my posts are a personal attack, then I apologize for the appearance of this and my inability to be as clear as I might.

I'm no saint in situational disagreements, but it is not my practice to express personal attacks because someone doesn't agree with me in discussion on internet forums.

 

 

 

 

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

 

 

It’s the skeptics who seem to have no understanding whatsoever that to equate religion with God is bigotry and ignorance, not some great intellectual achievement.

 

I’ve never been a religious person, but I have also never been dumb enough to take the human elements of religion and judge God according to these elements.

 

 

 

re·li·gion

/rəˈlijən/

Learn to pronounce

 

noun

 

1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

[Brothermario]

midnite, look up the definition of a “false equivalency”. You reek of it.

 

God was the greatest thought yesterday and will be the greatest thought today, qualitatively and quantitatively.

 

Your list of “things people believe in” is a stupid list of things that have not changed human history and human beings in any meaningful way.

 

You have an inability to think well.

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

 

 

To claim that God is impossible to know because human beings have so many differing opinions about God is a logical fallacy. Opinions are not experiences. Write for me the syllogism that supports such a claim.

 

 

Why do you care if we know God or not? It's not like you're a Christian, right? If you're not a Christian then there's no hell to burn in if I dont believe in God. Yet you blather on just like a fucking Christian would. What ARE your beliefs if you ARENT a Christian?

 

Why do we need BrotherMario to tell us about God? Please put God on the phone. If he were real and at least as powerful as a human being then he could talk to us directly without the mouth of BrotherMario yapping at us. 

 

 

[Brothermario]

midnite, I wrote my last response to you before you gave to me a dictionary. See? Skeptics like you are everywhere.

[Brothermario]

Why are you using “we” to respond to me?

 

Don’t you have anything to say on your own?

 

Or are you a king?

[midniterider]

6 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

midnite, look up the definition of a “false equivalency”. You reek of it.

 

God was the greatest thought yesterday and will be the greatest thought today, qualitatively and quantitatively.

 

Your list of “things people believe in” is a stupid list of things that have not changed human history and human beings in any meaningful way.

 

You have an inability to think well.

 

I know what false equivalency is. And no that is not false equivalency. 

 

Give me some evidence how God is/was great and how God has changed human history. Some examples. Not just bald assertions.

 

"You have an inability to think well." Ad hominem fallacy. Attack the argument, not the presenter.

[midniterider]

Just now, midniterider said:

 

I know what false equivalency is. And no that is not false equivalency. 

 

Give me some evidence how God is/was great and how God has changed human history. Some examples. Not just bald assertions.

 

"You have an inability to think well." Ad hominem fallacy. Attack the argument, not the presenter.

 

edit. Just show me God, period.

[florduh]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

florduh, I would be the only person who could know that, and who wasn’t making shit up, because I’m the only one claiming a positive experience of God, and you and all others here are claiming a negative experience of God.

Please pay attention. I am claiming NO experience of any gods. You are making the claims, and without any visible means of support.

 

Support your claims and assertions or get the fuck out. Clear?

 

[Brothermario]

When you provide to a person first their thoughts that are stupid, and then after that make the claim that they have an inability to think well, you are not attacking the person with just an ad hominem.

 

And now you have provided even another example of your inability to think well.

 

Logical fallacies are always the uneducated skeptic’s go-to talking point.

 

He will write something really stupid and then demand that people talk about it in great detail, rather than people being honest and just pointing out how obviously stupid he is.

[Brothermario]

florduh, I accept your surrender.

 

And it will be you who gets the fuck away from me.

 

All religious bigots and atheist groupies run away from me into the welcoming arms of each other.

 

I told you plainly that you won’t find God sitting on your ass or having a conversation.

 

You conveniently missed that part.

 

You’re too proud and too selfish and too lazy to do anything more than that, even to find the Truth about God and the meaning of your life.

 

You should be angry at yourself, not me.

[midniterider]

50 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

florduh, I accept your surrender.

 

And it will be you who gets the fuck away from me.

 

All religious bigots and atheist groupies run away from me into the welcoming arms of each other.

 

I told you plainly that you won’t find God sitting on your ass or having a conversation.

 

You conveniently missed that part.

 

You’re too proud and too selfish and too lazy to do anything more than that, even to find the Truth about God and the meaning of your life.

 

You should be angry at yourself, not me.

 

 

[Brothermario]

Or they regress into posting on social media like a 12-yr-old.

 

I imagine it must be very jarring for a modern thinker to come face to face with his intellectual limitations and superficial thoughts.

 

A video of Patrick Star would have been more appropriate to what’s happening with you, though.

[midniterider]

 

[alreadyGone]

Well this discussion certainly degenerated..

[midniterider]

14 minutes ago, alreadyGone said:

Well this discussion certainly degenerated..

 

The discussion seems to be mostly someone (SuperMario) with a condescending attitude making bald assertions without providing any evidence. His posts have no substance other than Ad Hom and posturing himself as some sort of authority. 

 

He's a joke. So Spongebob will provide the laughter.