A serious question seeking serious answers. What if God is just thoughts, ideas and representations in your mind, how would you know the difference? In other words, suppose there is no Supreme Being, no God "Out There" somewhere, no Heavenly Father busily making spirit children nigh unto Kolob? Instead, any and all those gods are just a collection of images in your mind - how would you know the difference? How could you tell that there is no real god Out There, rather, that the idea of god exists only in your mind?

Thanks in advance for your input and thoughtful responses.

Well, if there isn't really a God, then we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked, stand for justice, care for the sick, teach our children to do right, treat others as we would be treated, seek help when we need it, soothe the fears of the sick and dying, rescue those who need it, never turn away from the cry for help and always be a person of value to others.

You know, all the things we invented God for in the first place.

However, as a (sometimes agnostic) believer in God I do find myself thinking that there are some things we can never prove until we kick the bucket. And even though I do hope there is a God, there are times when I hope that there is not, because the power that people gain from using God as a weapon is far too dangerous andit would serve them right if they were wrong. Denial of validation is the only just reward for those who oppress.


Well, that sounded confusing...
What I should just say is that while I do not know, I do find great comfort in believing.
But at the same time, I despise the use of religion to harm other people. And if there is a God, those people will be punished for taking his name in vain (cuz that is what it means).

At any rate, God or no God, people are suffering and need help whether we provide that under the banner of a deity, or out of normal human compassion. And when we die, we will either cease to exist entirely, or we will be rewarded for our behaviour.
And, we will be remembered,and our descendents judged by those still living, according to whatever we were in life.

What if that "comfort" you feel in believing is really only comfort in yourself. Assume that god is only in your mind then the comfort you feel - real though it is - is only your self-assurance. What if the exterior god is actually the interior you? How could you tell the difference?

Good question. If I am comforted by my mistake it is better than to find no comforting at all. And if my mistake influences me to share that comforting with another, then what harm is there?

Likewise, I may be mistaken in believing that my wife loves me.
Maybe deep inside she hates my guts but still treats me like I was her best friend and is an angel to our children. Maybe she is plotting to kill me. I won't know until the time comes, but for now, I love her with all my heart and our kids love her and we seem to be very happy.

Should I diustrust her and reject her because there is a SLIGHTEST chance that deep inside and unseen by anyone she might not be what she seems? Or maybe she should reject me and take the kids with her because someday some psychotic episode might occur due to an extremely rare medical condition that may afflict me?

There are many things we do not know, but as long as it is of value and it helps us, we might as well keep it until something better comes along or we are proven to be in error.

I'm not placing a value judgment on the issue. I'm not suggesting that there is anything right or wrong, good or bad about it. All I'm asking is, how do you know? If someone choose to believe in god or God, well, OK. But how do they know that the god in which they believe is Out There or In Here (inside the brain)?

I do not know.

I guess the only way to know for sure is to have a verifiable experience witnessed by more than one outside disinterested observer.

What is reality, except that which the mind perceives as true?

.... and what difference would it make if someone lived for the love and grace offered by God, and was giving, happy, kind, forgiving and loving.

Or if someone believes God is imaginary and stupid yet lives for the same wonderful things.

Or what if someone believes or disbelieves and is a self-centered wretch only invested in their own fleeting ego, bodily sensations, and wants - and cares not a whit about anyone else, their feelings, needs or concerns.

What truly is the reason for life?

Perhaps it makes no difference if the God is real or imaginary but how would you KNOW the difference?

If you actually encounter this supreme being, even then there would be doubts. What if this supreme being is merely a very advanced life form and not a God at all? So there is know way to KNOW.

With Patriotism everyone thinks that their country is the greatest. They get misty eyed when they hear their national anthem and see their flag.

I remember being young and watching the Olympics and seeing the Russians win a Gold and getting the whole anthem and flag treatment. I saw how proud the Russians were, and how it did nothing at all for me. But when the Americans won, I felt so much, and the song meant so much.

People get the same thing with a God. They feel such powerful feelings much like the Gold medal thing. Each group thinks that their god is the real one, and they feel such powerful feelings for their god. But much like the olympics, we don't feel it for their god, and they don't feel it for our god.

Patriotism is just a made up thing to make us feel good about our country, and the others to feel just as good about their country. God is the same. It's just made up to make us feel good about our religion. Religion isn't made for God, God is made up for the religion.

It does feel good to think that there is a magical power guy who watches out for you. He makes the HR guy hire you, he steers your car around drunks, he finds your lost child etc. How comforting to have someone watching out for you like that.

Thing is, almost everyone makes up a magical power in all cultures. There seems to be a human nature thing that needs an ally watching our back. For some cultures it's the magical sun god. For others it is the spirit of the forest etc. We all seem to make one up.

The thing is, the Amazon tribal guy is just as positive that the spirit of the trees is the almighty power as the Mormon is positive their guy is it. So in a rational way, who can say that the Mormon God is anymore the real power than the spirit of the trees?

I think that they are all equally wrong. Humans need it, so they make it up. It makes life better for a lot of them. If you believe it, it's real. The Russians were just as sure that their flag and national anthem was the truly magnificent one, as we were about ours.

Feeling strongly that you are right, and you are the one that knows, doesn't make it any more likely to be right.

If there is a God, he's not a very good one. He does some damned silly and stupid stuff.

DNA, I think your post is the most common sense, logical argument I've heard in a while. Exactly what I think. Well done.

What if life, everything you do, say, feel, experience, is just an illusion, you know, 'a la' Matrix? What if that chair you are sitting in right now is just a construct of someone's imagination, and that computer you are using is really just an electrode hooked to your head that feeds into the mainframe computer of the Matrix you are a node in? How would you know the difference?

In my opinion, there is no possible way to know who or what god is or even if god exists while we are living on this plane of existence. It is one of the limits of being human. I agree with what JoD3:360 said, just live life the best you can and do what you can to make the world a better place. That is all we can do for now. If believing in a god helps you feel better about this life then by all means do it. If believing in a god that allows all the pain and suffering that exists on this earth turns your stomach, then don't believe. The bottom line is that we are here and like it or not, there is nothing we can do to know what happens when we die or if there is a god or who that god is. Everything else is simply your observation of your existence and in reality there is no way to prove or disprove god's existence.

With a good imagination you can create any number of credible possibilities to answer your question, but in the end they are nothing more than speculation because there is simply no way to know the answer definitively until we have passed on from this plane of existence and quite possibly not even then.

I like this answer, however, I'd like to disagree about the Matrix part. While it is possible that we might be living in an imaginary world as suggested by the Matrix I think it is safe to discount such a scenario. Why? Well, absent a more sophisticated reply, just because I have no reason to suspect that this world is any less material and real than it seems to be.

However, with regard to God, we have no tangible, material, quantifiable evidence to support that God is anything more than mental representations. I know, I know, Mormonism says God has a body as tangible as man's but until he shows up at my front door, shakes my hand and comes in for a beer, I have no reason to believe that "tangible body" stuff.

Also, I like Koemi's reply below, especially the reference to Schrodinger's cat. Nice!

Truth is truth. You cannot add to it, you cannot subtract from it. If God exists, then he does. If it's all in everyone's head, then that's what is.

People too often confuse their own experience with truth. But truth isn't your opinion. Your opinion is only true to you and others who share it. That shared opinion, in the case of the Mormon Church and others, is a very powerful force....but it is not truth.

So, I'd say that the idea that God exists only in the minds of those that believe in him--is also just an idea that only exists in the mind of the thinker. Every idea is valid, and because of that they are all also invalid. And the concept that they need each other to exist (the law of opposites) shows me that God is AND is not AND is both (Schrödinger's cat is alive AND it is dead, until you open the box....or, in our case, until you die). But really that's just my opinion. It doesn't change what's true. I'm pretty sure what's true would make our heads explode...so we just find a belief that we're comfortable with and hold on to it.

God does exist. His creation proves his existence.

If you look at a building you know there was a builder, and you know there was a designer. Its the same with God. The human body, and mind is much more complicated than any building so there must have been a designer. Short answer... If God didn't exist you wouldn't exist. You are wonderfully made by Him.

Evolution makes no sense whatsoever. How could the DNA code "gain" intricate information by selective mutations. No matter how many mutations occur you will never "gain" information in the DNA code. Mutations work to degrade the DNA code, not add to it. The DNA code shows God's design.

Also, you have the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics does not permit order to arise from disorder, and therefore the macro evolution of complex living things from single-celled ancestors could not have occurred.

Joe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> God does exist. His creation proves his
> existence.
>

Couldn't that just as easily mean that there is no God, just a Satan type of person? Couldn't a Satan, who descended from a Satan have a mean little plan where they create things just to watch them suffer?

On earth, mean spirited people create things. It is interesting that your idea of a creator assumes that it was a "nice" creator. I don't believe it, but using your proof, couldn't there have never been a God ever, only mean Satan types?

Everybody on earth suffers pain and sorrow maybe the creator isn't a nice grandfatherly guy after all.

Without getting into a discussion of the argument from design or "Intelligent Design" which is what you suggest let me offer a brief reply. All your reply demonstrates is that, since you cannot fathom a more realistic explanation for things as they are (re: evolution) your mind's imaginary god becomes the imaginary designer. Voila! Now you don't have to think about it anymore.

By the way "Intelligent Design" has been demolished so many times I'm surprised you or anyone else would bring it up.

Joe Wrote
---------------------------------------------------------------

"If you look at a building you know there was a builder, and you know there was a designer. Its the same with God. The human body, and mind is much more complicated than any building so there must have been a designer. Short answer... If God didn't exist you wouldn't exist. You are wonderfully made by Him."

Actually you look at a building and know that it was designed because you've grown up around buildings and the humans that inhabit them. However a building might mean nothing to an E.T. or someone from the distant past that has never seen a building might come to a different conclusion.

It's similar to this example. When it rains the sidewalk gets wet, do by using the same logic, when the sidewalk is wet, that means it's rained! Doesn't work though does it. Rain is one of potentialy thousands of reasons why the sidewalk is wet. Just because we are here and there is a sort of "order" that we observe, doesn't mean it was created by God.

>Also, you have the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics does not permit order to arise from disorder, and therefore the macro evolution of complex living things from single-celled ancestors could not have occurred.

It does not say any such thing. The Second Law merely states that in any closed system, entropy must increase in any process. The Earth (and life thereon) is NOT a closed system as it receives a continuous energy input from the sun. No living organism on Earth can be considered a closed system as they all obtain energy from some source in the environment.

Your example would also preclude human reproduction as you could not develop from a single cell.

>Evolution makes no sense whatsoever. How could the DNA code "gain" intricate information by selective mutations. No matter how many mutations occur you will never "gain" information in the DNA code. Mutations work to degrade the DNA code, not add to it. The DNA code shows God's design.

Another completely erroneous statement. There are numerous ways that genetic material can be added to the genome. Retroviruses can insert genetic material. There are duplications of genes that occur all of the time in all organisms. Have you ever wondered why you have 4 genes for the hemoglobin A chain (two on each chromosome)? [because the gene was duplicated at some point in evolution.] Chromosomal nondisjunctions increase the genetic material in an organism. Chromosomal insertions and rearrangements can do the same. There are a number of human disease conditions that result from addition of multiple base pairs in various genes. Some more primitive life forms can exchange genetic materialbetween individuals by the process of conjugation - in bacteria, this can even occur between individuals of different species(which turns out to be significant in the spread of antibiotic resistance).

Bottom line:there are numerous means of increasing the amount of DNA in a genome. Once it is there, mutations will affect it like any other DNA.

You really should make an attempt to understand science before you try to argue against it... otherwise you just look ignorant.

The article was written up in a Science magazine - either Scientific American or American Scientist (I don't recall which one).

The finding was that a believers values matched up with their conception of God. The presumption is that the individual is matching their values to be like those of their God. But researcher found that when they were able to cause a shift in the values of the individual, the person's God also shift His values to match those new ones of the individual.

In another part of the study, they conducted MRI scans on believers in the study. When asked to think about the characteristics - values, attitudes, etc - of their God, these subject used the same areas of their brain - nearly identical - as when the subjects were asked to think about their own characteristics. These areas were very different than when these same individuals were asked to think about characteristics of other people the subjects knew.

The conclusion was to question whether the conception of God in a believers mind isn't a projection of the individuals own personality. It doesn't answer whether God exists or not, only that the way people conceive of God appears to be self generated using a self concept as a model.

I realize that you may not have that info, but it would certainly be something that I would like to keep handy!

This is not the same source that I read since I picked up a magazine in a store, but it appears to be a report on the same study.

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/creating_god_in_ones_own_image.php

Searching Under the article's title "Creating God in one's own image" I notice that the article in mentioned on a number of websites including Richard Dawkins' site.

In searching, I also ran across this article with a related but somewhat different subject.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=belief-in-the-brain

If this topic is as fascinating to you as it is to me, check out these books:

"Minds and God" by Todd Tremlin
"Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer
"The Supernatural and Natural Selection" by Steadman and Palmer

Good reading!

I am going to check those out. Thanks!

Puli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is not the same source that I read since I
> picked up a magazine in a store, but it appears to
> be a report on the same study.
>
> http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/c
> reating_god_in_ones_own_image.php
>


Great article. Thanks for the link

The only way to know if there is a God is for God to validate God's existence. I see no value in believing in a God who requires things on faith alone, without validation. That's not how the world works - if God wants to have Gods existence known, then God has to come out of hiding.

Now, there are other things that might possibly validate God, but its hard to say. Suppose you had Elijah standing there right beside you, and he called down fire from heaven, claiming it was from God. Well, how the hell do we know that? That might be where faith comes in, when there's a reason to believe, few reasons not to, and the guy that can do things that no one else can claims that he knows something that others might not.

As far as spiritual feelings go, its a tough call. Do those feelings give you insight that you wouldn't have had given normal circumstances? As an example, do you know that at 12:32 tomorrow so-and-so is going to die, or feel something very specific that otherwise is unknown? That validates that the spiritual feelings are more than just feelings, but it doesn't mean there is a God.

But, how much does it matter? If there is a God, would you change your actions? I wouldn't. If there's a God, God created me, and so I'm going to go ahead and just plug along with whatever desires God gave me already.

"But, how much does it matter? If there is a God, would you change your actions? I wouldn't. If there's a God, God created me, and so I'm going to go ahead and just plug along with whatever desires God gave me already."

Isnt this the core of it? Why would you change your actions if there is a God? Whats all this made in his image stuff if that image doesnt include integrity?

I recently watched a documentary on the archealogical digs on the Orkney Islands, the Sea Eagle Clan. A mixed collection of human skeletal remains were strewn throughout the communal burial site. From what researchers were able to piece together, [reads: based on the evidence] and considering the average life expectancy was 25 yrs., that even though there were tribal elders, extended family, it meant there were adolescents, children who were more or less on their own, when it came to finding answers to the "big" questions.

Imagine searching for insight as to what the future might hold, looking for the love and reassurance that only a parent could provide. Is it any wonder that ppl were inside tombs, handling, talking to the bones of their predecessors? It's how such sites became sacred, how gods came into being, why monoliths were erected, why temples were built . . . children rummaging through bones.

I'm always looking for explanations, but thus far, my conclusion: Our gods are of our own creation, and they are what we make of them.

S