Communication With The Creator...

[William]

William: There is a thread in the C&A forum asking "Why is communication with God one way?" and is focused the idea that a Creator - whichever idea about that one adopts as belief - is specifically a silent observer in the affairs of humanity, and does not commune with the individual.

The focus of that thread is, of course, to do with the general Christian idea of a Creator...that one normally going by the name/title of "God".

In that, the dependency is on The Bible, as this set of stories is normally believed by most Christians to be "The Word of God" and therein, the God of The Christians communicates to the individual through said books - bound as they are into one overall book.

The book therefore becomes the 'steering mechanism' of the individual Christian 'ship' sailing through their life experience, who believes it to be so.

Which is to say, even if the individual might think that they are in a two-way communion with the God, anything which contradicts The Bible, has to be discarded as a devilish deception, for the simplistic reason that 'it is not in The Bible' because The Bible is taught to Christians as being "the Word of their God".

Therefore, all Christians who are captured under the influence of this belief, are effectively unable to have and build upon any actual relationship with The Creator, because they depend upon the Medium of The Bible and this effectively cuts them off from a two-way communication with any actual intelligent entity, including The Father.

While some might argue that they do indeed have a two way communion with The Father through The Son, their communion with The Son is also achieved through the medium of The Bible...first and foremost, so their dependency upon having a connection at all, amounts to dependency upon The Bible.

This amounts to having a relationship with a book which cannot truthfully be said to be the same thing as having a relationship with The Father.

Indeed, much of the confusion has to derive from the fact that within said book, are written words attributed to Jesus...who among other things states that HE is "The Word of God" - a big clue right there as to what Christians are doing incorrectly when they refer to The Bible as 'The Word Of God' - and this misleading idea that The Bible can bring an individual closer to The Creator becomes the substitute, as they mistakenly think that The Bible is the medium between The Father and the individual.

And all that is achieved is that those who practice such, are not really having a relationship with any living entity. They are simply having relationship with a book and claiming this as the same thing as having a Relationship with The Creator.

[Divine Insight]

William: What do you base your understanding of rationality on?

Logic, reason, experience, evidence and common sense. As far as I'm concerned a person would need to toss all of that out in order to adopt the worldview that you espouse.

I certainly have no reason to to that.

And for what purpose? To keep alive an unreasonable hope that fairies and magic might actually exists? I'm simply not so desperate to believe in fairies that I'm willing to abandon logic, reason, experience, evidence and common sense in favor of embracing fantasies that basically required that our experience and evidence is actually all wrong.

Spiraling into self doubt is not the trajectory I chose to take on such matters.

Except this is precisely what you have done. In order to believe in magical fantasies you do indeed need to doubt everything we actually know about the world. You actually need to bring into doubt your very own senses.

Doubt is doubt. You doubt that what you experienced is real.

Where do you come up with that? That statement doesn't represent my views or position on anything. I believe my truck is sitting out in my driveway right now because that's where I last parked it. And me experience has been that's it's always where I had last parked it.

So where do you get off accusing me of doubting what I experience? You're the one who needs to do that.

The point I am making is that there isn't the need to delegate experience as 'real' and 'not real'

But now you are just playing silly philosophical semantic games.

My dreams are quite real. I don't deny that. Do they represent a physical reality? There is no evidence that they do. To the contrary the evidence that they don' t is overwhelming. I can imagine a pink elephant in my living room right now. I can even visually see it in my imagination. Is the imagination real? Absolutely. I can see the elephant in my mind's eye. Is the pink elephant physical real. No, of course not.

So your philosophical semantic word-play is not impressive. In fact, it can only be one of two things:

1. An attempt on your part to suggest that I am ignorant enough to fall for such nonsense.

OR

2. An exhibition that you do fall for such nonsense.

You imply that there is something you experience as 'real' and something you experience as 'not-real' as you regard the latter as a product of 'imagination' - perhaps even 'over-active imagination'.

Again more silly semantic word-play on your part.

My imagination can be a "Real Experience" while not being "Physically Real" in terms of what is being imagined. And we already know that this indeed a fact of life. The Pink Elephant that I had just imagined is proof that imagination is a "Real Experience" but does no represent "Physically Real" entities.

So we are right back to you suggesting that you have trouble distinguishing between imagination and physical reality.

I don't share that problem. I can distinguish between the two.

If you are now clarifying that your experience was real, just say so. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with me understanding what you have so far written, in the way I have so far done.

You appear to either be purposefully trying to push your semantic word-games to the limit, or you are truly incapable of distinguishing the difference between physical reality and imagination.

I am more interested in examining hard evidence which is being missed by people in general - those who find it necessary to believe that we are not existing within a Creation and attempt to tell me that it is all simply a product of a mindless accident, don't appear able to integrate such evidence.

Secular scientists have already explained how our universe can have the order it has without any intelligent mind behind it.

Your claim that there needs to be an intelligent designer-mind behind it is the claim that is without evidence.

Not only this but think of how silly that claim actually is.

If you claim that anything that is well-organized must have been "Intelligently Designed" then how did your imaginary "Creator Mind" come to be?

Based on your position it also HAD to have been "Intelligently Designed" because that's your whole argument. Anything that is well-organized must have been "Intelligently Designed" EXCEPT for you invisible "Creator Mind" that you conveniently allow to be an exception to your own rule.

Your arguments don't stand up to the test of rational logic and reasoning William.

How can you not see that?

If you are going to demand that anything that shows signs of being "Well-Organized" had to have been intelligently design, then, by your own argument, if you also claim that your imaginary "Creator Mind" is also well-organized, then it too had to have been intelligently designed.

So the Secularists are way ahead of you. They don't require an infinite circular regression to accept that the universe became well-organized without the help of any previously well-organized magician.

Secularists = 1
William = 0

That's the logical score we currently have.

The Secular position makes sense. Your position does not.

[William]

[Replying to post 21]

William: What do you base your understanding of rationality on?

Divine Insight: Logic, reason, experience, evidence and common sense. As far as I'm concerned a person would need to toss all of that out in order to adopt the worldview that you espouse.I certainly have no reason to to that.

And for what purpose? To keep alive an unreasonable hope that fairies and magic might actually exists? I'm simply not so desperate to believe in fairies that I'm willing to abandon logic, reason, experience, evidence and common sense in favor of embracing fantasies that basically required that our experience and evidence is actually all wrong.

William: That is absurd and unreasonable. An over-the-top response against a world view which has it that we live in a Created Reality.


Divine Insight: My imagination can be a "Real Experience" while not being "Physically Real" in terms of what is being imagined.


William: Not sure why you are now defending something I never said was "Physically Real".

Just because something is experienced as real but is not physical, is not "less real" for that.

Indeed, I was saying that your defense of scientific analysis regarding 'imagination' as somehow not being 'real' because it is not physical, is not in itself evidence. Rather it is simply the way the evidence is being interpreted.

Add that with the notion that the only thing that is real is physical stuff, and one has painted oneself into a corner. From there, one can only make the assumption that the physical stuff is not created, and follow that trajectory to the only conclusion that avails itself.

That is your conclusion as presented, is it not?

Divine Insight: I can distinguish between the two.

William: So can I. Where they share common ground is that they can both be regarded as Creations.

Divine Insight: Secular scientists have already explained how our universe can have the order it has without any intelligent mind behind it.

William: Then show the evidence. I have seen no such explanations. What I have seen, and have already mentioned is that these explanations are based on the assumption that we do not exist in a Creation.
let us see the evidence where these 'secular scientists' have shown us this is not the case.

Why - even the fact that you call these scientist 'secular' proves that I am correct in my analysis that those who start off with the premise that we do not live in a creation, are going to reach no other opinion than that.

Divine Insight: Your claim that there needs to be an intelligent designer-mind behind it is the claim that is without evidence.

William: My claim is that my subjective experience has provided the evidence in which I cannot deny that this physical reality is a Creation.
You appear to want to put words in my mouth, distorting what I actually write in order to suit your opinion of who I am.

Divine Insight: If you claim that anything that is well-organized must have been "Intelligently Designed" then how did your imaginary "Creator Mind" come to be?

William: What imaginary 'Creator Mind' DI? That is your interpretation. I never called the Creator Mind a product of imagination.
Perhaps before you form you questions to me you try carefully reading what I actually wrote and comment on that.

What I write, is that this reality we are experiencing is a creation. A Creator Mind is simply the way in which the creation is produced.
As to who created the Creator Mind, the logical answer is that The Creator did.
As to who Created the Creator, the Creator has always existed.

I have not said that a Creation is the same as a Creator. You appear to have conflated the two...perhaps thinking that if a Creation needs a Creator, then a Creator must also require one.
If that is the case, please explain to us, using your rational logic and reasoning, why you think that has to be the case.

Divine Insight: Secularists = 1
William = 0

William: Jumping the gun you are DI. Until you can answer the above question, perhaps leave your silly scoring out of the discussion.

[Divine Insight]

Divine Insight: Secularists = 1
William = 0

William: Jumping the gun you are DI. Until you can answer the above question, perhaps leave your silly scoring out of the discussion.

Sorry, but the Secularists have logical explanations. Your musings are not logical.

So the above score stands whether you like it or not.

As to who Created the Creator, the Creator has always existed.

But this flies in the face of your previous argument.

You had previously argued:

I am more interested in examining hard evidence which is being missed by people in general - those who find it necessary to believe that we are not existing within a Creation and attempt to tell me that it is all simply a product of a mindless accident, don't appear able to integrate such evidence.

You demand that our reality cannot be the product of a "mindless accident" while simultaneously making absurd excuses for the supposed existence of your imaginary creator: "As to who Created the Creator, the Creator has always existed."

Just because you are willing to buy into such an absurd argument doesn't make it a logically sound argument.

All you've managed to do is make unwarranted demands on our reality (i.e. it couldn't be the product of a mindless accident) while proclaiming that a well-organized intelligent "Creator" could have simply always existed without any explanation whatsoever.

If you think that's a logically sound argument you are sadly mistaken.

Besides, the secularists have already shown where organization can indeed arise from a "mindless accident". So they are way ahead of you. They have a sound position. You do not.

Therefore the score stands.

Secularists = 1 :They have an explanation.
William = 0 : He has no explanation.

That's already a done deal. That's the current score on the scoreboard whether you like it or not.

Thinking that by proclaiming that your creator has "always existed" will somehow even the score is simply nonsense. Just proclaiming that a creator has always existed explains nothing.

[William]

[Replying to post 23 ]

William: As to who Created the Creator, the Creator has always existed.

Divine Insight: But this flies in the face of your previous argument.

You had previously argued:

William:

• "I am more interested in examining hard evidence which is being missed by people in general - those who find it necessary to believe that we are not existing within a Creation and attempt to tell me that it is all simply a product of a mindless accident, don't appear able to integrate such evidence."

William: So where exactly do you show us that the idea of a Creator always having existed is contradictory to what I wrote above?

Oh - and you have yet to produce the evidence that we are not presently existing within a creation.

So - instead of using this chat thread to make snide personal remarks DI, how about showing us even one - just one - scientific discovery which shows us plainly that this reality is the product of a mindless process. That this reality is not a Creation.

Do that, if you can.

Otherwise just admit that there is no such evidence and move on.

Oh - and one more thing. You didn't explain what you base your understanding of rationality on.
If it is the one dominant reality experience that you are currently undergoing, what exactly is rational about being alive on a huge water-covered stone planet floating around like a tiny grain of dust in a seemingly infinite place?

And what about that dominant experience makes any other alternate experience somehow 'irrational'?

So rather that waste the opportunity for behaving rationally, by making snide baseless judgments about what it is - in your 'humble' opinion - I am, and making silly score-card comments about 'who is winning' perhaps back up your opinions with something more than opinion.

That would be a nice change and more in line with the purpose of this thread.

Or - if you feel that such is beyond you, move along with said opinion as it is rather boorish and contradictory to thread purpose.

[Divine Insight]

So where exactly do you show us that the idea of a Creator always having existed is contradictory to what I wrote above?

Why should anyone care whether the idea of a Creator always having existed is contradictory to anything that you might have written?

The bottom line should be crystal clear.

Both philosophy and science are supposed to be based on logical reasoning. And we are all looking for explanations.

What do the secularists have? Explanations.

They can explain how and why things can evolve into complexity without the need to postulate that any intelligent guidance is required. So they have an explanation.

What do you have? Nothing. All you have is a postulate that some imagined Creator that is already well-organized and intelligent has always existed. That doesn't even qualify as an explanation for anything because you haven't explained anything. All you've done is take something that you cannot explain and removed it from the possibility of ever being explained by just proclaiming, without rhyme or reason, that it has simply always existed.

That's not an explanation for anything. To the contrary it's a complete avoidance from even trying to explain anything.

So once again, when it comes to actually offering explanations for things:

Secularists = 1: They have a rational explanation
William = 0: He has no explanations to offer.

Saying, "Let's just ignore the problem and pretend that a well-organized creator has always existed", is not an explanation. It's basically nothing short of refusing to even address the questions seriously.

It's certainly not an answer. In fact, it's just the opposite of an answer. You are basically just saying "I don't know". Because unless you can explain how a well-organized intelligent mind could have always existed, then you most certainly don't know anything.

All you've done is push the problem away so that you don't even need to address it at all. That's neither philosophy nor science.

Surely you can't object to other people just rolling their eyes at your proposals?

Where is you evidence that any well-organized intelligent eternal mind exists?

You may as well be proposing faeries or boogiemen. Those ideas have precisely the same evidence as your proposal. None.

If you are truly interested in trying to figure out the nature of reality why not do that and address things that can be known?

Secularists have demonstrated that complexity can evolve from simpler things. So they have evidence to back up their observations.

You don't even have good reasons to propose the existence of an imagined well-organized intelligent entity, much less any evidence to support that proposal.

How can you not understand these simple truths?

I'm just telling you the facts.

Secularists have credible explanations backed up with real world evidence.

You have no explanations at all and no evidence either.

Who should I see as being more credible? You, or the Secularists?

Can you answer that honestly?

Who would you trust? Someone who has explanations along with evidence to back them up, or someone who has no explanations and no evidence?

[William]

William: While we await DI to present the evidence supporting "secular explanations", I will continue from where I left off in post #11

I decided to test something that Jesus is attributed with saying, and so - to the protests of the Jehovah's Witnesses who had been coming around to my home and doing Bible studies with me - and as it turned out - also representatives of other Christian sects, I sold up everything I owned, gave the money away and went out on the road, my mission to pray to The Father for The Kingdom of God to become a reality on Earth. A small simple prayer request which I would say in every village town and city I stopped at along the way, over all of the Island in which I lived.

It was over that period of time that my eyes were opened to the reality of something which up until then I had been almost completely unaware of. That 'something', I came to understand as Serendipity through Synchronicity, a clear indication that there was indeed, a largely invisible intelligence behind the veil of existence.

Many years later - in 2001 - I was to learn over the internet, the secular argument that 'chance' and 'coincidence' was the 'explanation' for why events appeared to have intelligent agency behind them...much the same way in which DI argues his secular explanations, here and now in 2019.

To those who have experienced no different, the secular explanation will suffice, but for me, who had already experienced over a significant period of time, being in a position where I had no convenient access to basic daily needs, and relied upon AND had those needs meet through belief in an invisible intelligence looking after me, such secular explanations simply did not fit my actual experience and were no more relevant for that, than were the protests of various members of Christians Sects who told me I shouldn't be doing what I did, because Jesus' advice to give up the things which were normally trusted in and let The Father provide, was to his followers 'in that time' and did not apply to us modern day Christians.

I learned a lot from my experience out on the road, trusting in the invisible providence and having my trust confirmed as personal evidence through those serendipitous acts.
So much so in fact, that when I hear the secularist 'explanation' that it is just 'chance' and 'coincidence' I fully realize that such 'explanation' comes from a place of ignorance and assumption, untested by those secularists in the manner of peer review...finding none who are willing to place their assumptions aside and do the same thing I had done, in order to put the process to test and see what results they could find therein.

So the secularist 'explanations' - such as they are - are no more to me than "Noise From The Peanut Gallery", something I can confidently ignore as just that, as I continue with The Play unfolding on The Stage of Life, from my perspective.

Although - I do not discount the possibility that some who call themselves 'Secularists' and 'Naturalists' and argue that we exist in a mindless accident rather than a mindful Creation - perhaps do know The Truth, but do not want that Truth out in the open, and
it is their role in The Game, to try to undermine any 'talk' of such, because they are all about 'winning.'

What it is that they think they are 'winning' seems to be a great deal of nothing much, but each to their own...

[Divine Insight]

While we await DI to present the evidence supporting "secular explanations", I will continue from where I left off in post

DI doesn't need to prevent evidence that the secularists have already presented.

Here's the bottom line William.

DI doesn't need to say anything at all. William is the one who is trying to convince others of his proposed imagery creator mind.

But he has no evidence for such a thing. Nor can he even explain how such a thing could exist.

Plus his original argument is self-defeating. His argument is he can't understand how complexity can arise naturally from simple systems. So from this he concludes that an already complex system must have always existed. But that's not based on any meaningful logic whatsoever.

You simply don't have a logical argument to offer. It's that simple.

it is their role in The Game, to try to undermine any 'talk' of such, because they are all about 'winning.'

It's not about winning or losing William.

It's simply the fact that you have nothing meaningful to offer. Period.

That's what the score reflects.

Secularists have a meaningful argument.

You do not.

If you want to view that as the secularists "winning" and you "losing" please feel free to do so. But that's not how the secularists view it at all. They really couldn't care about your standing in any imaginary "game" in any case.

[William]

William: Another thing which I find no logic in, is where naturalists argue 'who is winning and who is losing'.

Winning and losing what, exactly?

The naturalist position which believes that the brain is the creator of consciousness and that this mindless accident of a universe has no purpose or meaning at its core, has no need of winners and losers, does it?

What exactly is anyone winning or losing in relation to the greater reality experience of seemingly infinite time and space?
A little speck of dust on the edge of nowhere?



But anyway, it wasn't I - the Theist - who brought into this conversation the idea of 'winners and losers' and then when questioned about it - did a flip to make it sound like it was Me who brought it up in the first place ...and I dare say that anyone who might claim that they have no interest in what they call the theist position of "nothing meaningful to offer" sure do spend a lot of time attempting to belittle said position. That alone signifies at least some interest, but still does not explain the obvious rampancy of response to theistic stimuli. It is a curious tactic, to say the least...

[William]

William: So, through taking things to task, I discovered in a real way that The Creator is able to communicate with the individual through the device of the Creation and provide the individual with the basic things the individual needed.

One can say then, that prayer can indeed be a two way communion. The request is asked using language, and the answer is given using unfolding circumstance.

Many theists understand this principle at its basic level, although Christians generally do not recognize that the principle works for other types of religious belief - or if they do - the 'explain' it away as 'being of the devil' because many Christians appear to attribute great powers to said devil, including being able to trick others into believing he is 'God'...but I have come to understand this idea as being necessary in order to make it appear to such Christians that all other alternate religions are 'of the devil' even including other Christian Sects which do not practice belief in similar dogmatic traditions as their own.

But whatever the beliefs surrounding serendipity and synchronicity, it is clearly not just a case of 'its only coincidence' as secularists believe. In a universe which is believed to exist as the result of a mindless accident, 'coincidences' of such nature should simply not happen.