What If God Was Real And Manifested Proving It?

But consider that we now have the ability to track spending/purchasing with digital currency.
We don't though. Try tracking Russian spending nowadays. Or even Chinese. Plus lesser cases like the US dollar vs the Euro. It's just a bizarre claim to me to assert that we have "one monetary system".
 
The way i see it, God doesn't directly intervine 'cause god wants us to find our own way. God gave us free will for a reason.
 
We don't though. Try tracking Russian spending nowadays. Or even Chinese. Plus lesser cases like the US dollar vs the Euro. It's just a bizarre claim to me to assert that we have "one monetary system".
I apologize if I wasn't clear. Yes indeed there is no one monetary system now but they're working on it.
 
I apologize if I wasn't clear. Yes indeed there is no one monetary system now but they're working on it.
But you are unlikely to see it in your lifetime. Nationalism is very strong and will favor national currencies. A single currency will likely subject everyone and every market to similar trends. good and bad. Governments use currency values to manage their populations (as best they can); a power they won't willingly give up. In addition, nations struggle to manage their own currency, we do not know how to manage the currencies of 160+ nations. Currency is a powerful political tool and it would take a central power to even attempt managing a single world wide one. Unless you see world government in the near future, I doubt it will happen.
 
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So given that religious experiences do exist, it seems fairly clear to me that they constitute evidence for God. However, I don’t think they’re very good evidence, because I don’t see any reason to think that the probability of religious experiences given God is much higher than their probability given no God. Or to put it another way, the probability of their existence given no God is still high enough for their actual existence to provide only pretty weak evidence. It is still evidence, though, I think.
Irrational confidence can be adaptive.

Contemplating the infinity of time beyond our deaths is a bit depressing and those who had grand visions of something beyond that probably were more likely to get laid. Also it has social cohesion benefits.
 
I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that the world will still be amazing with the lack of me.
 
When I drive by a graveyard (which I do most days), I think the following sequence of thoughts. Well, each of those people had his or her time. I'll have my time. I'll be under one of those stones one day. And someone else will be driving past this graveyard. That person will have his or her time. I like to imagine myself not just after my death, but several years after my death, when I've truly become irrelevant to anybody who knew me in this life. (I know, for example, that I will be long remembered on CFCOT:)). And even then, the world will be going on.
 
Well!

Likewise, Hygs. Thank you.
 
The way i see it, God doesn't directly intervine 'cause god wants us to find our own way. God gave us free will for a reason.
I almost agreed. I was genuinely surprised by your neutral stance, which I deeply respect. Your view mirrors that of Ibn Tufayl in the sense that each one of us is born with a belief in a higher power. Later, through observation of the world's structure and organization, we manage to trace The Organizer. At least from an Islamic point of view, God does not intervene because the life of this world—be it 60, 70, 80 years or less—is like a dream during a brief nap compared to eternity. The life after death is the real reality.

Yes, there is injustice everywhere. Babies die of cancer, people suffer, but this argument itself highlights an inherent sense of morality. In a godless world, there's no intrinsic morality. For example, the horrible case in India where a woman was unjustly paraded naked in public and gang-raped, is considered bad due to learned morality. In essence, we as a society consider that bad arbitrarily. But if we argue that rape is intrinsically bad, then what is our basis for considering it intrinsically bad? Our DNA? Our evolutional principal? Evolutionary wise rape is consider to be instinctive for one to spread their descendances, this is often used in order to explain Genghis Khan brutal rape of numerous of women from countries that he conquered, so in evolutionary perspective it's possibly become a virtuous act.

Now imagine, you were having a nightmare, none of us realize that the dream is only a dream when we are dreaming we always perceive dream as real as our present reality. It's only when we wake up to a higher reality that the nightmare ceases to matter, that we may say "ah it's only a dream", none of us complain how unfair our experience in our dream was, because dream reality is trivial than the reality after we woke up. However, we might be relieve by the higher reality or not, that's totally depending on whether we wake up to a reality that is better or worse than the dream we had.

Not trying to convince anyone here, because I really don't care at all we are definitely responsible for our own selves and I'm never in the quest of spreading my view, but I just want to present a perspective.
 
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It's a nice view, that it is like a dream, from which you'll wake up. Then again there are two serious risks with that:
-it may not be a dream at all, and nothing else awaits outside
-it may be a dream, but "I awake from the terrible dream, only to realize reality is thrice worse!" ^^

I'd be very ok with a future where humans (well, some humans) just live longer and ultimately pretty much forever. Assuming it is a great existence without most of the current problems.
 
In a godless world, there's no intrinsic morality. For example, the horrible case in India where a woman was unjustly paraded naked in public and gang-raped, is considered bad due to learned morality. In essence, we as a society consider that bad arbitrarily. But if we argue that rape is intrinsically bad, then what is our basis for considering it intrinsically bad? Our DNA? Our evolutional principal? Evolutionary wise rape is consider to be instinctive for one to spread their descendances, this is often used in order to explain Genghis Khan brutal rape of numerous of women from countries that he conquered, so in evolutionary perspective it's possibly become a virtuous act.

Y'know, this is reminding me of things I've seen believers say in the comment sections of my news site. They think that if there weren't laws against it, atheists would run out, raping and killing everyone we came across, because we have no morals.

The thing about most humans is that we're able to override the baser instincts, at least most of the time. And just because someone can survive the gom jabbar test (Dune reference), it doesn't mean they can't become a barbarian later.
 
I've heard both sides of the equally stupid notion: 1) that an atheist will drop all pretence to morality when it suits him 2) that the only reason a believer does good or avoids bad is a greed for reward or a fear of punishment
 
I'd wager that religion more prominently played the role of a sedative. People can need sedatives, and it would be reckless to take those away if you don't have something as potent to offer.
I wonder what @Plotinus made/would make of the Borges story where god hid his identity, out of modesty ^^ (Three Versions of Judas).
 
In a godless world, there's no intrinsic morality.
God isn't necessary for morality tho.
For example, the horrible case in India where a woman was unjustly paraded naked in public and gang-raped, is considered bad due to learned morality.
I don't think so. I think a baby watching the scene would also be scared & horrified. One shouldn't need God commanding one not to rape. Also noteworthy that India is known for both high violence & high religiosity (the two are generally correlated, the less religious a nation generally the less crime)
Evolutionary wise rape is consider to be instinctive for one to spread their descendances, this is often used in order to explain Genghis Khan brutal rape of numerous of women from countries that he conquered, so in evolutionary perspective it's possibly become a virtuous act.
Rape is an avenue of evolutionary success but most children are not born via rape & I don't think anyone would consider rape the ideal form of reproductive (even from a pure cold & calculating mindset I'd imagine children born as a product of rape are probably less likely to reproduce themselves than children born of a happy couple).

I agree with you that evolution is amoral but that doesn't necessarily imply we need god to be moral. We can simply observe that our fellow beings, society & try to create a world that minimizes suffering. This can all be done secularly (and imo should be done secularly)

Now imagine, you were having a nightmare, none of us realize that the dream is only a dream when we are dreaming we always perceive dream as real as our present reality. It's only when we wake up to a higher reality that the nightmare ceases to matter, that we may say "ah it's only a dream", none of us complain how unfair our experience in our dream was, because dream reality is trivial than the reality after we woke up. However, we might be relieve by the higher reality or not, that's totally depending on whether we wake up to a reality that is better or worse than the dream we had.

Not trying to convince anyone here, because I really don't care at all we are definitely responsible for our own selves and I'm never in the quest of spreading my view, but I just want to present a perspective.
Could be. It's possible & there's no way to know otherwise (that this is not a dream).

The fact that it feels real doesn't prove anything. If life didn't feel real we wouldn't take it seriously. It'd be like a boring game of Monopoly that people would walk away from. All the pains & pleasures make it feel real.

The Buddhists would argue it's not real (and the ideal is, like the unsatisfactory game of Monopoly, to get up from the table) but because it feels real we should treat our fellow beings with the utmost compassion. At a younger age I thought the idea that life, feeling, thinking, sensation was inherently unsatisfactory & should be abandoned) as absurd & distasteful but in my old age it's strikes much more of a chord with me.
 
The hundreds of men involved in that one incident of sexual assault in Manipur were Meitei, who are mostly Hindu. At best, their religion didn't sufficiently prevent them from commiting such an attack, and it may have contributed. (The women under attack were Kuki, who are mostly Christian.) That's not an incident that a person of faith wants to use to demonstrate how religion imparts morality upon believers.

Y'know, this is reminding me of things I've seen believers say in the comment sections of my news site. They think that if there weren't laws against it, atheists would run out, raping and killing everyone we came across, because we have no morals.

The thing about most humans is that we're able to override the baser instincts, at least most of the time. And just because someone can survive the gom jabbar test (Dune reference), it doesn't mean they can't become a barbarian later.
I remember a person of faith once saying that he didn't understand where agnostics and atheists get their sense of morality from. Fair enough. I wonder that about some people, too. :lol: But that's different from claiming that morality only comes from God/gods/religion. The idea that morality only comes from God/gods/religion is something that straightup frightens me about religious people (setting aside for a moment how insulting and arrogant it is). When they say that, they're telling me something about themselves: Not only are they saying that what's preventing them from oppressing or doing violence to others is their adherence to a religion, not a personal sense of right and wrong, but they're also saying that if their religion ever told them to oppress or do violence to others, they would. Yikes. Then I read about Lauren Boebert explicitly attacking freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. You think she would kill me if she thought her God wanted her to? In a split-second.

I'd wager that religion more prominently played the role of a sedative. People can need sedatives, and it would be dangerous to take those away if you don't have something as potent to offer.
I think the world would improve dramatically if religion really were the opiate of the masses.
 
By now, christianity tends to be mostly that, although occasionally (as in US politicians) it's used (in?)directly for war. W Bush was less indirect about it.
Islam likely is a bit more war-oriented still. It's funny in a way, that Nietzsche referred to islam as a "manly religion" (The Genealogy of Morals), due to identifying it as geared to war from the start (and not just "the revenge of the pariah", which he saw christianity to be about). I am sure he couldn't anticipate how that'd be taken now ^^
 
Funnily enough, right after posting above I was confronted with a story about religious Americans threatening the separation of church and state.

AP, 31 July 2023 - "Oklahoma parents, faith leaders and education group sue to stop US’s first public religious school"

AP said:
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A group of parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit sued Monday to stop Oklahoma from establishing and funding what would be the nation’s first religious public charter school.

The lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court seeks to stop taxpayer funds from going to the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 last month to approve the application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to establish the school, and the board and its members are among those listed as defendants.
Of note, both Oklahoma Republicans and Christians are among those marshaling to the defense of freedom of religion here. In my post above, I was going to add something like, "it always seems to be religious conservatives who threaten the separation of church and state the most" and blam, the very first news article I look at - I wasn't even looking for something apropos of this conversation, I was just browsing - throws the thought right back in my face. :lol:

AP said:
The vote came despite a warning from Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general that such a school would violate both state law and the Oklahoma Constitution.
AP said:
The Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said she joined the lawsuit because she believes strongly in religious freedom.

“Creating a religious public charter school is not religious freedom,” Walke said. “Our churches already have the religious freedom to start our own schools if we choose to do so. And parents already have the freedom to send their children to those religious schools. But when we entangle religious schools to the government … we endanger religious freedom for all of us.”
 
Regardless of what laws are in place, every one of us have a built in moral compass. Anyone in their right mind knows that it is bad to steal or to lie for example. None of us need religion for that.

We don't even need religion.

All we need, and that is up to the individual to decide for themselves, is a relationship with God. The rest will fall into place.
 
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