Existense

How

You have to have faith and believe in a higher being and the higher being you believe in is not identical to anyone else's. So when you die, so does the higher being you believe in, even if you have projected it on others.

Only my projection of the higher being will die when I die, not the higher being.
My projection has died more than once already.

Any higher being you believe in only exists in your mind, because that is where everything you believe exists, even if others confirm your beliefs it doesn't make them real, because people lie, even to themselves.

Then hello, oh figment of my imagination. Turns out I believe you exist so, logically, you're just in my head.

I have better proof that God exists than that you exist.

You are half correct, on one half I do exist outside your mind according to myself and you, on the other half what you think of me only exists inside your mind. As I can't read your mind what is in there will die with you. I am not a god or your god, but if I was how easy it would be to talk with you and read back what you are thinking or tell you the future. Then again is it you talking to yourself or is it God, is it real or is it Memorex! LOL 1980s commercial reference! Did you predict the future or did a god put it in your mind. I certainly will never know, because only you can tell me! And people tell lies! I don't know if your god does though.

Thank you for the completely unnecessary jumble of words talking about how you don't know what I am thinking. It's true for everyone because we all have a bias that people don't relate to.

Honestly, if feels like you're making a red herring.

You seem to comprehend everything I have said, but it seems to me you are still confused as to what that is. I assure you I'm not trying to lead you astray. Any higher being you believe in only exists in your mind. Try and answer the question: "Am I lying to myself"? Then ask how you know? Nobody can be sure that they are being honest with themselves, and that is why psychologists can make a living doing what they do. I believe that people that believe gods exist are lying to themselves, just like the meme suggests.

In that case, I believe I can ask the same for you. My belief in a God is not based on the idea that I like the world better if there's a God, it's based on logical arguments.

I grew up in a Christian home, but when I came of the proper age, I realized: I have to consider not taking the Christian view for a proper philosopher's position.

So, my friend, let's take this into consideration. At its root, you are claiming that God does not exist. He only exists in the mind, much like a character only exists in his book.

That was, I must say, a very strong delivery to the claim that we are only deceiving ourselves when we believe in God. Well delivered for a claim that quite easily provokes outrage. I applaud you on your speech. You certainly know your way around rhetoric.

I think there are two kinds of Christians: Those who have never asked your question, as these ones never thought about it. Perhaps they grew up in a Christian home and that neglected to cross their mind, and those who have not only asked the question, but have answered it, using their intuition to come to a conclusion.

It's likely that this is similar when it comes to any religion or lack thereof.

Religion doesn't necessarily require a deity to worship, it merely requires a set of rules and a philosophy or a bunch of teachings about life. In theory an atheist can be religious and atheism isn't a thing.

Hence my saying, "lack thereof". There are atheists who have asked the question of whether they're just assuming that God doesn't exist, maybe they just don't believe because it's emotional, and there are atheists who have asked the question.

So I might ask you, have you asked the question for yourself or have you been fed doctrine, have you had people telling you all about how theists are a bunch of idiots? Have you accepted the atheist argument without properly criticising it, or have you seen the arguments and actually committed critical thought for them?

Re: So I might ask you, have you asked the question for yourself or have you been fed doctrine, have you had people telling you all about how theists are a bunch of idiots? Have you accepted the atheist argument without properly criticising it, or have you seen the arguments and actually committed critical thought for them?

If you look around at all people that have a strong belief in God regardless of religion, you will come to the realisation that nobody is any better off than anybody else. The arguments lead me to believe people are gullible, weak and afraid and seek reassurance that there fears will not come to fruition and some how the cure is to have faith and believe, but all the prayer in the world doesn't change a thing. Many confuse prayer with meditation and critical thinking. I would say that critical thinking is probably why there is so much hypocrisy in the Bible. I find it comical when I hear two people arguing about something and both are referencing counter arguments with passages from the Bible and then argue that each is taking things out of context when they can't bear to admit the Bible is full of crap in between stories. Sometimes when I ask them to put themselves in the position of a character what would they do they have trouble being honest, because it deviates from the narrative in the story. One of my favourites is: what would you do if it was a bad winter and you had 100 sheep, but you could only buy enough feed to carry 50 without mass starvation, until the spring when they could forage? And what would you do to someone, that burned the feed you were going to buy? And that's why Cane killed Able, the rest is embellishment! Which reminds me there is a war going on right now and it's about crude oil, the rest is embellishment!

Well, the burden of proof lies with the one making the one making the claim, so you'll have to deliver to validate the claim that arguments for God are just phony excuses. I would say that you would have to invalidate the strongest arguments for God in order to get me to stop believing. In other words, you would have to show me why the world doesn't need a divine being to exist in its state today (or at all, coming to the cosmological argument, which is the strongest argument for God). So, with a thirst for knowledge, I'm quite exited to hear your reasons for rejecting them.

Anyway, your dilemma. I don't think you get exactly the problem with Cain and Abel. I don't think that at any point Abel burned the feed Cain was going to buy for his sheep. What happened was that God didn't accept Cain's offering and accepted Abel's. Cain killed Abel because, as God said in the Bible, "...if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door..." so I would say that Cain probably killed his brother out of jealousy, not out of revenge (which, mind you, is not the right thing either).

So, your problem with the story of Cain and Abel is more of a strawman fallacy than it is a problem. You're finding a problem with a Biblical event that never happened. Now, if you still have problems with the story and still want to justify Cain, we can take the conversation of this dilemma further to the actual problem, but if you, looking at this story, don't see a problem, we can move on to your next dilemma of whether the "bad people" are justified.

You seem convinced the world is the way it is because there is a divine being pulling strings!
Who created God? If you believe he just was, why is it that you can't accept the same for the Earth and stars?
Who would have witnessed the creation of the Earth and all that is on it if there was nobody around to see it and document it before Adam and Eve were created?

As for Cane and Abel, the bigger question is why did Cane "feel" he needed to kill Abel?
Abel's sacrifice had nothing to do with him.
Put yourself in Canes shoes, your brother gave a gift that wasn't what God wanted, what does that have to do with you?
You should be happy yours was the better gift.
How could that impact you, that you would commit murder?
Why would you be jealous of an inferior effort on your brother's part?
It only makes sense unless if there was an impact on Cane.
Did God accept Abels gift as being equal or greater than Canes?
That may have made Cane jealous maybe.
I don't think so, all though I haven't read the story lately, so I could be wrong.
Would Cane have killed Abel anyway even if he had given a blood sacrifice to God?
Sometimes stories are written to raise questions and not a true account of history, I think the Bible is jam packed with stories like that!

God is the greatest possible being to exist. He's that by definition, so if something created God, then the created god is no God at all, because the thing that created god would be God. When you think of it that way, of course there is nothing that could ever have created God.

Your argument is nothing I haven't seen before. Hear me out and try to look at this from an open mindset. You ask, how can God be infinite while the universe can't?
The answer to that is something I consider reasonably simple. The Cosmological argument makes you look for an uncaused cause, so, you ask yourself, what are the things stopping the universe from being the first cause? Well, the universe is physical, so it is bound by space and time. Therefore, the argument causes you to look for a cause that isn't bound by space or time.

Thus, this first cause is timeless, spaceless, and holds quite a bit of power, because it would've had to set this complicated universe in place. Hmm, that sounds lot like the common depiction of God, don't you think? And him just "being" is set apart from the Earth and stars for clear reasons (that is, the problem of space and time).

As to who would've witnessed God creating the Earth, I'll respond to you with the question of how Moses (the most likely writer of Exodus and Genesis) knew that "the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart?"

Addressing Cain and Abel, I believe you continue to misunderstand the tale of the two brothers. Allow me spell out the story for you:
Cain made a sacrifice of some grain and Abel sacrificed the best of his flock. God was pleased with Abel's offering but not pleased with Cain's and, as a result, Cain was furious. At that point, God warned Cain that if he did not do what is right, sin would be crouching at the door. Cain then proceeded to murder Abel and God confronted him about it and so on. This is an accurate telling of the story; I used the Bible (and not my memory) to write it and you can fact check it yourself.

Looking at the properly told story, ask yourself, how justified is Cain now? Yes, you could put yourself in his shoes and understand why he was furious and jealous, but does that mean he's justified?

How do you know if the universe is bound by space and time? If the metaphysical exists it could also bind space, time, the universe and God!
The part you're missing is that Cain had no sheep. I would assume he gave the best of his labour by burning his grain. Ploughing fields back then couldn't have been as easy as herding sheep.
The question is do we think God was justified for not respecting the gift of Cain?
Both gifts were sacrifices of labour.
The more I think about it the more I think God is a dick, jerk, asshole!
Are you are saying that Cain killed Abel because he wanted to hurt God?
Like I said before, take God out of the equation and the story makes more sense.

I know that the universe is bound by space and time because it is merely the sum of everything that is within boundaries of space and time. I don't think I can escape time and space, can you? Can you witness the big bang and the triassic period at the same time, or be in Mexico and France in the same exact moment? I think not. A finite number plus a finite number will never equal an infinite number.
How do I know that the metaphysical doesn't bind God? Why is it my job to disprove that? You must prove that God is bound by the metaphysical, I don't have to disprove it, the same way I don't have to disprove that there's a teapot floating in space. Not being able to disprove it doesn't make it true.

I still don't think you're understanding the meaning of the story. We do not know if Cain had any sheep, but that's not at all related to the story. Cain should have given the best of his labor, not just "some grain."
According to the Bible, Cain only sacrificed some of his grain. Abel sacrificed the firstborn of his flock. So, your assumption is not exactly accurate.

God, just as he is, did not accept Cain's sacrifice. It is not explained as to why Cain killed Abel. That's why we infer that Cain was jealous that Abel had his offering accepted. If God didn't accept your offering but accepted your brother's, what would you feel? It's understandable that Cain would kill Abel out of jealousy. People have done often thought history.

Every story has a different perspective, people don't normally do drastic things for no reason. But even if there is no obvious reason people do drastic things. It is said that man was created in the image of God, I don't know if that means "imagination" or "Image" but if it is "image" then man is God, as an image has no choice but to reflect what is real. In other words there is no difference between the reflection and the reality. In the lords prayer we say: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven"! How is any of that possible if we are not Gods created in his image? Cain killed Abel with the authority of God and he suffered the consequences for his actions, that was his punishment. When God makes a mistake who pays for it? Only God! If you have no power over God, then God does what he wants and only allows you to know what he wants you to know, and you have no choice in the matter!
I think we are gods, and we are no more powerful than each other. That being said some of us know our powers and how to use them and some of us will never realise the powers we have!

Well, that comment was a bit of a mouthful, don't you think? You also didn't address, my Cosmological Argument this time, which makes me wonder what you're thinking about it. Anyway, to your argument.

"Man was created in God's image, therefore man is God."
I can see where you're getting at that. However, this isn't necessarily true. Man was created with the ability to think, to reason, to show his great morality, similar to God, just not perfect as God is. When it comes to animals, they can't do such a thing.
Imagine that we are iron over a fire. The iron will become red hot, but will never become the source, the fire. Or, for another, we are a mirror, showing God in the image. The clearer the mirror, the more of the image of God is shown.

We are nowhere near as perfect as God is. We've made mistakes, fallacies, flawed reasoning.

We are nowhere near as perfect as you assume God is! To say we are not as perfect as God is to say God is not perfect in his creation of man, and is to say God made mistakes which also makes him imperfect!
Re: "You must prove that God is bound by the metaphysical"
If I have to prove that God is bound by the metaphysical, I first have to prove that the metaphysical exists, and I cannot!
But if you are so sure it does please prove it!

Now that's reasonable reasoning. However, that's like saying that God is at fault for creating animals that can't reason at all, because they're not perfect like he is. Giving humans the ability to reason is not a mistake. I can make a little minifigure of me on purpose. But that little minifigure will never be as good as me.
God also (at least according to Christianity) made humans good, and they are good, but then came the fall.

For your rebuttal of my ask for proof that God is bound by the metaphysical, I don't think you're understanding the argument.
Originally, you claimed that God could be bound by the metaphysical if it exists. So I responded claiming that God doesn't necessarily need to be bound by the metaphysical if it exists.
Your response is more of a misinterpretation of my counterclaim (and perhaps my counterclaim may be a misinterpretation of your claim). It also ignores the rest of my claim, that the universe must be bound by space and time.