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Do you believe in God?
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Joey D
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Unfortunately, it is a teaching in the LDS Church, particularly in this passage from the Book of Mormon:
2 Nephi 5:21: And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
Essentially, the Lamanites (who Mormons believe are all the Native Americans and Polynesians) harden their hearts against God and then God (or Yahweh) cursed them with skin of blackness.
If you read the Book of Mormon (it sort of reads like a fanfiction of the Bible) you'll see quite a bit of really racist teachings. It's likely a product of its time since the book was written in the 1820s.
Danoff
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The "reason" any event occurs, is the immediate state of the universe just preceding the event. It's independent of interpretation.
I think you're intending to invoke "meaning" instead of reason (cause) - everything has meaning, and the meaning is open to your own interpretation. If that's the case, I'd say the idea that everything has meaning is flawed, but meaning is definitely open to interpretation.
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Which does not make sense. If something is true, it should be verifiable without pre existing belief. If you believe first, then anything can be true. It's unfortunately something I'm seeing a lot lately.The Book of Mormon was not written in 1825-30. It was translated by the gift of God. But that only makes sense if you believe that to begin with.
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I followed "Satan's" account on Twitter and had the weirdest nightmares that same night.
Time to see what happens when I follow "God"
Time to see what happens when I follow "God"
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Hold some keys in your hand with your palm facing downwards. Say, "I don't believe in gravity". Then drop the keys.
You don't need belief in gravity for gravity to be true.
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If only there was some kind of method, perhaps of the sciency variety, that could help answer that...
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If you can actually prove it, yes.
And I mean actually prove, not "i prayed for rain and it rained, it was a sign from god!".
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Referring back to this experience:
I could say it's true that Satan exists, and caused those nightmares.
I could also say it's true that it was a coincidence.
I might say it's true that my subconscious was behind it all.
I can't conclude any of these (or other) things are the "truth", but I can believe one (or more) of them to be true.
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As an aside, the night I followed "God's" account I had a pleasant dream. I'm sure you'd take it as a sign of something, and I wouldn't argue quite as hard as others against that, but I wouldn't draw a definitive conclusion from it.
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@Northstar 's image is a start. If something can be determined to be true, it must be testable. God, or the people behind god, want to avoid testing their religion as much as possible. It's designed to hide truth, intentionally or by accident.
If you can show that your answer was a result of prayer, you can show that prayer does something. However this involves ruling out coincidence.
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You're still in the first box there.
Although the fourth one should say "being incorrect" at the end.
Ghost Lap
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People have different understandings of it and different terminologies for what it may be i.e God, spirit, energy, Qi, Dark Matter etc. The general understanding though is that there must be some kind of underlying force holding the very fabric of physical reality together. It all just seems a bit coincidental to me that the universe exists and seems to work as it does for there not to be something greater behind it all.
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I'm on "maybe" in that I'm not sure whether we're here by accident or there's something "bigger" going on. But what I am sure about is that if there is anything bigger going on, nobody had a clue what it is and organised religions are all going to be wide of the mark. They're just all attempting to make sense of the unknown in ways that suit the cultures they originated in and the time they originated in.
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Hmmm, I've kind of made a similar point before, but I don't think it's a question of terminology, more of what the concept of what a god is. Like, if god appeared, what would expect his capability or influence to be? Is he simply the creator, or does he control your destiny for example.
To echo @TheCracker, I'm not sure if it's possible for us to fully comprehend the scale of time or the universe, but the fact the universe exists as we know it, and works as we interpret it, reflects only an almost infintesimal fraction of the journey between the beginning, and the death of the universe.
Not for scientific fact, but more for an appreciation of scale I recommend watching Timelapse of the future: A Journey to the end of time on YouTube...
.. which includes the quote from Dr Brian Cox, "As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent".
The coincidence is that you exist at a point in human evolution where we're smart enough even think about, but one way or another, you're on a slope somewhere between the big bang, and potentially the heat death of the universe. If a god is in control of holding it together, he is, on a cosmic scale, allowing for it to slip through his fingers in favour of entropy.
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One of these does not belong. There is absolutely no equivalence between god and dark matter. Dark matter is the result of trying to rectify a difference in the observed and predicted rates of galaxy rotation and can be defined by math. None of that applies to god (or the other terms you used - except maybe energy but I don't feel like you meant actual energy), which is an invented being designed to apply purpose to things because human brains evolved to look for causation.
What general understanding? The default position when it comes to how the world works and where it came from is a lack of knowledge. You may feel like a creator-less world is a big coincidence, but you still have to prove it or it's just a feeling. You should also consider that your position isn't very strong when you can replace reality with the creator and have the same problem:
"The general understanding though is that there must be some kind of underlying force holding the very fabric of the creator together. It all just seems a bit coincidental to me that the creator exists and seems to work as it does for there not to be something greater behind it all."
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How so?
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Because given the time the universe has existed as we know it, or as our understanding of it allows us to know it, the way it 'exists' seems much more plausable to have come about by random occurrence over a time scale of almost 14 billion years, rather than by any kind of design/inteligence.
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I don't know why coincidence is so unsatisfying for some people.
Part of me thinks it's the human condition of searching for reason resulting in "coincidence" being too flat or too uninteresting an answer, therefore there has to be something more to it.
Part of me thinks it's the human condition of searching for reason resulting in "coincidence" being too flat or too uninteresting an answer, therefore there has to be something more to it.
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Interesting thought.
However, in my personal opinion also, I don't see how it has been long enough to organize itself without a directing influence.
Sure, SOME things can come together in a few billion years, but honestly, for the level of complexity we live in there hasn't been enough time for THIS level of complexity.
Random chance being random chance, there has to have been a plan.
Danoff
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How about planets and stars? Do you see how those organize themselves without a directing influence? I can walk you through it if you like.
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