The God Hypothesis

[Tank]

The God Hypothesis. What is it?

Most people who self identify as atheists state that they do so because they have never been shown sufficient and/or convincing evidence to support the proposition that a god or gods exist.

So, from the ground up as it were, what is the god hypothesis and what evidence is there to support the hypothesis?

[iSok]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.
Everything else is speculation and gives us a bit of understanding of God.

The Taoist describe the Tao as 'that which cannot be described, if it can be described then it's not the Tao'.
The Tao is seen as the underlying natural order of the Universe, one can't describe the Tao but he can experience or know the Tao.

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.
Ibn' Arabi (d.1240) once said that 'God lowers Himself out of His mercy to the image that His servants makes of Him.'
That is very close to modern western thought (People made up God).

For me personally the proof comes from three aspects.

- The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.
- The human being.
- The Cosmos we perceive with all it's forms of life.

And with the last two I do not mean the biological or chemical complexity.
Instead, I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.
Let's say that I see the whole spectrum of Ying and Yang or Tanzih and Tasbih and so on
spread in nature but concentrated within the human heart.
Our inner nature manifests itself in the reality we perceive; what we do and see is what we are in a certain way.

[Stevil]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.

How do you know that god is the source of all? You read it somewhere?
It seems you are very close to being agnostic.

Everything else is speculation

So why go to church or mosque? Do you like speculation?

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.

Really, is god a he? Maybe a she, or an it or a shemale, maybe god swings both ways or no ways at all. It's all just speculation right?

I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.

If aliens pay us a visit, and they are more intelligent and more evolved (created) superior to us, would you then give up your belief in god?
Or would you shift your perspective of humans and realise that we are here simply to test the faith of god's beings, the one's made in his image, the ones we call aliens.

[Tank]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.
Everything else is speculation and gives us a bit of understanding of God.

The Taoist describe the Tao as 'that which cannot be described, if it can be described then it's not the Tao'.
The Tao is seen as the underlying natural order of the Universe, one can't describe the Tao but he can experience or know the Tao.

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.
Ibn' Arabi (d.1240) once said that 'God lowers Himself out of His mercy to the image that His servants makes of Him.'
That is very close to modern western thought (People made up God).

For me personally the proof comes from three aspects.

- The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.
- The human being.
- The Cosmos we perceive with all it's forms of life.

And with the last two I do not mean the biological or chemical complexity.
Instead, I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.
Let's say that I see the whole spectrum of Ying and Yang or Tanzih and Tasbih and so on
spread in nature but concentrated within the human heart.
Our inner nature manifests itself in the reality we perceive; what we do and see is what we are in a certain way.

Thank you for taking the time to reply ISoK.

Imagine for a moment I want to buy a car and you are a car salesman. Your 'pitch' is approximatly as follows.

The only thing I can say for sure about my car is that my car is the best car and ideal for all user.
The evidence I have for this is that:-
- Everybody likes cars so mine must be good.
- The Human being.
- All the cars in the universe.

ISoK, if you were selling me a car you'd have to do a lot better than that, and I hope that if somebody tried to sell you a car using the same mythology as you are trying to 'sell me' god you'd tell the salesman to go take a hike.

Your opinion on the existence of god is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me, in the same way that the opinion of a car salesman on the car they are selling to me is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me and in the same way that Darwin's opinion on evolution is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me. You, the car salesman and Darwin have to lay out their evidences and proofs and I will make my mind up based on what is presented. I care not one jot what you think they mean. Your evidences and proofs need to stand on their own merits.

First you need to state what god is as the basis of your hypothesis. We can move on from there.
Can you do that for me please?

[Too Few Lions]

The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.

??? I really don't see any evidence for the 'transcendent unity of religions', in fact I think the evidence points to the opposite being true. If all religions are united why have there been so many wars between them?
If you seriously believe in the 'transcendent unity of religions' that raises so many questions for me. Do you consider Allah to also be the same god as Zeus, Baal, Isis, Odin and Shiva? Why did the Taliban destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan if Buddhism is ultimately unified with Islam? Why aren't you allowed to promote any religion other than Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia if all other religions also lead to Allah? Why are the Yazidi persecuted by Muslims in Iraq if their religion is also ultimately your religion? Why did the early Christian emperors outlaw all other religions and destroy and close down all the pagan temples if those religions were all ultimately the same as Christianity? Why did Mohammed go around destroying the statues and temples of all the other Arabian gods if ultimately they were the same as Allah?

Why are non-Muslims persecuted in many Muslim countries if they ultimately follow the same religion? And why does the Quran contain literally dozens of (maybe even a hundred or more) lines saying that all unbelievers will burn in hell if ultimately they all also worship Allah? Given that atheism didn't really exist in the seventh century, the term 'unbeliever' refers to followers of different religions to Islam. Why does the Quran contain lines like;

'O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protector'

'fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'

'O ye who believe! Truly the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque'

'Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle'

'If anyone invokes, besides Allah, Any other god, he has no proof therefor; and his reckoning will be only with his Lord! and verily the Unbelievers will fail to win through!'

'Yet they take (for worship) gods other than Allah, (hoping) that they might be helped!
They have not the power to help them: but they will be brought up (before Our Judgment-seat) as a troop (to be condemned).'

'Who set up another god beside Allah: Throw him into a severe Penalty' etc etc

Your belief in the 'transcendent unity of religions' appears to me to be in plain contradiction of your holy book and the word of your god!

[Too Few Lions]

So, from the ground up as it were, what is the god hypothesis and what evidence is there to support the hypothesis?

If I was looking to answer 'the god hypothesis ' I'd probably start from the heavens down rather than the ground up particularly as the earliest known gods were often linked to the stars, sun, moon and visible planets

[Tank]

So, from the ground up as it were, what is the god hypothesis and what evidence is there to support the hypothesis?

If I was looking to answer 'the god hypothesis ' I'd probably start from the heavens down rather than the ground up particularly as the earliest known gods were often linked to the stars, sun, moon and visible planets

quite right!

[iSok]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.
Everything else is speculation and gives us a bit of understanding of God.

The Taoist describe the Tao as 'that which cannot be described, if it can be described then it's not the Tao'.
The Tao is seen as the underlying natural order of the Universe, one can't describe the Tao but he can experience or know the Tao.

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.
Ibn' Arabi (d.1240) once said that 'God lowers Himself out of His mercy to the image that His servants makes of Him.'
That is very close to modern western thought (People made up God).

For me personally the proof comes from three aspects.

- The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.
- The human being.
- The Cosmos we perceive with all it's forms of life.

And with the last two I do not mean the biological or chemical complexity.
Instead, I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.
Let's say that I see the whole spectrum of Ying and Yang or Tanzih and Tasbih and so on
spread in nature but concentrated within the human heart.
Our inner nature manifests itself in the reality we perceive; what we do and see is what we are in a certain way.

Thank you for taking the time to reply ISoK.

Imagine for a moment I want to buy a car and you are a car salesman. Your 'pitch' is approximatly as follows.

The only thing I can say for sure about my car is that my car is the best car and ideal for all user.
The evidence I have for this is that:-
- Everybody likes cars so mine must be good.
- The Human being.
- All the cars in the universe.

ISoK, if you were selling me a car you'd have to do a lot better than that, and I hope that if somebody tried to sell you a car using the same mythology as you are trying to 'sell me' god you'd tell the salesman to go take a hike.

Your opinion on the existence of god is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me, in the same way that the opinion of a car salesman on the car they are selling to me is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me and in the same way that Darwin's opinion on evolution is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me. You, the car salesman and Darwin have to lay out their evidences and proofs and I will make my mind up based on what is presented. I care not one jot what you think they mean. Your evidences and proofs need to stand on their own merits.

First you need to state what god is as the basis of your hypothesis. We can move on from there.
Can you do that for me please?

Tank, as I said earlier you can't define God. If you can define it, then it's not God.
A definition takes certain elements from the reality we perceive and it places these elements in a certain order on an object.
In case of God, this is not possible how strange it may sound for the atheist.

(42:11)Naught in the universe is like Him.

Given all the attributes that different religions give Him; like All-Powerful, All-Seeing and so on is to express
that God is the Source of all. We see, but God sees all, we hear but God hears all.
We are Unreal compared to God, who is the only Real.

(28:88) All will perish but He.

Ultimately everything will return to the Source.

(10:56) He it is Who gives life and causes death, and to Him shall you all be returned.


Tank, it's quite hard for me to explain this.
It's like being on an Amish forum and explaining evolution and not knowing where to start.
So it's hard to squeeze it into a forum debate...

If you are genuinely interested then you should start by reading
'The transcedent unity of religions' by Frithjof Schuon.

Or you could comment on the creation myth of the Popol Vuh which I posted in
the thread 'Christianity & Islam'

In all other cases the debate will end in:

'Man was afraid of the unknown and of death, gave meaning and explanation to the environment
he lived in and at the same time he assured himself that gods were looking after him.
First the sun, clouds, lightning and so on were gods because he didn't understand the natural phenomenon.
Then the more he understood his environment the more the gods retreated and now God can't be found anywhere.'


Which is totally alien to the thought of the believer, God can still be found everywhere.

-Why are you afraid of lightning?
-Why are we in awe of a beautiful scenery?
-Why does the hyena tear his prey apart unlike the cheetah that makes sure his prey is dead before eating.

[Tank]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.
Everything else is speculation and gives us a bit of understanding of God.

The Taoist describe the Tao as 'that which cannot be described, if it can be described then it's not the Tao'.
The Tao is seen as the underlying natural order of the Universe, one can't describe the Tao but he can experience or know the Tao.

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.
Ibn' Arabi (d.1240) once said that 'God lowers Himself out of His mercy to the image that His servants makes of Him.'
That is very close to modern western thought (People made up God).

For me personally the proof comes from three aspects.

- The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.
- The human being.
- The Cosmos we perceive with all it's forms of life.

And with the last two I do not mean the biological or chemical complexity.
Instead, I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.
Let's say that I see the whole spectrum of Ying and Yang or Tanzih and Tasbih and so on
spread in nature but concentrated within the human heart.
Our inner nature manifests itself in the reality we perceive; what we do and see is what we are in a certain way.

Thank you for taking the time to reply ISoK.

Imagine for a moment I want to buy a car and you are a car salesman. Your 'pitch' is approximatly as follows.

The only thing I can say for sure about my car is that my car is the best car and ideal for all user.
The evidence I have for this is that:-
- Everybody likes cars so mine must be good.
- The Human being.
- All the cars in the universe.

ISoK, if you were selling me a car you'd have to do a lot better than that, and I hope that if somebody tried to sell you a car using the same mythology as you are trying to 'sell me' god you'd tell the salesman to go take a hike.

Your opinion on the existence of god is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me, in the same way that the opinion of a car salesman on the car they are selling to me is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me and in the same way that Darwin's opinion on evolution is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me. You, the car salesman and Darwin have to lay out their evidences and proofs and I will make my mind up based on what is presented. I care not one jot what you think they mean. Your evidences and proofs need to stand on their own merits.

First you need to state what god is as the basis of your hypothesis. We can move on from there.
Can you do that for me please?

Tank, as I said earlier you can't define God. If you can define it, then it's not God.
A definition takes certain elements from the reality we perceive and it places these elements in a certain order on an object.
In case of God, this is not possible how strange it may sound for the atheist.

(42:11)Naught in the universe is like Him.

Given all the attributes that different religions give Him; like All-Powerful, All-Seeing and so on is to express
that God is the Source of all. We see, but God sees all, we hear but God hears all.
We are Unreal compared to God, who is the only Real.

(28:88) All will perish but He.

Ultimately everything will return to the Source.

(10:56) He it is Who gives life and causes death, and to Him shall you all be returned.


Tank, it's quite hard for me to explain this.
It's like being on an Amish forum and explaining evolution and not knowing where to start.
So it's hard to squeeze it into a forum debate...

If you are genuinely interested then you should start by reading
'The transcedent unity of religions' by Frithjof Schuon.

Or you could comment on the creation myth of the Popol Vuh which I posted in
the thread 'Christianity & Islam'

In all other cases the debate will end in:

'Man was afraid of the unknown and of death, gave meaning and explanation to the environment
he lived in and at the same time he assured himself that gods were looking after him.
First the sun, clouds, lightning and so on were gods because he didn't understand the natural phenomenon.
Then the more he understood his environment the more the gods retreated and now God can't be found anywhere.'

If you can't define what god is, then I can safely ignore what you have to say about god and your opinion of what god is (or is not), says (or not says) or does (or does not do). Thank you for so succinctly demonstrating that god is a meaningless concept.

[iSok]

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.
Everything else is speculation and gives us a bit of understanding of God.

The Taoist describe the Tao as 'that which cannot be described, if it can be described then it's not the Tao'.
The Tao is seen as the underlying natural order of the Universe, one can't describe the Tao but he can experience or know the Tao.

As a believer, I think God is very different than what we think He is.
Ibn' Arabi (d.1240) once said that 'God lowers Himself out of His mercy to the image that His servants makes of Him.'
That is very close to modern western thought (People made up God).

For me personally the proof comes from three aspects.

- The transcendente unity of religions as many comparative scholars have noted.
- The human being.
- The Cosmos we perceive with all it's forms of life.

And with the last two I do not mean the biological or chemical complexity.
Instead, I see a hierarchy in nature with the human being as the top of that hierarchy.
Let's say that I see the whole spectrum of Ying and Yang or Tanzih and Tasbih and so on
spread in nature but concentrated within the human heart.
Our inner nature manifests itself in the reality we perceive; what we do and see is what we are in a certain way.

Thank you for taking the time to reply ISoK.

Imagine for a moment I want to buy a car and you are a car salesman. Your 'pitch' is approximatly as follows.

The only thing I can say for sure about my car is that my car is the best car and ideal for all user.
The evidence I have for this is that:-
- Everybody likes cars so mine must be good.
- The Human being.
- All the cars in the universe.

ISoK, if you were selling me a car you'd have to do a lot better than that, and I hope that if somebody tried to sell you a car using the same mythology as you are trying to 'sell me' god you'd tell the salesman to go take a hike.

Your opinion on the existence of god is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me, in the same way that the opinion of a car salesman on the car they are selling to me is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me and in the same way that Darwin's opinion on evolution is absolutely and utterly meaningless to me. You, the car salesman and Darwin have to lay out their evidences and proofs and I will make my mind up based on what is presented. I care not one jot what you think they mean. Your evidences and proofs need to stand on their own merits.

First you need to state what god is as the basis of your hypothesis. We can move on from there.
Can you do that for me please?

Tank, as I said earlier you can't define God. If you can define it, then it's not God.
A definition takes certain elements from the reality we perceive and it places these elements in a certain order on an object.
In case of God, this is not possible how strange it may sound for the atheist.

(42:11)Naught in the universe is like Him.

Given all the attributes that different religions give Him; like All-Powerful, All-Seeing and so on is to express
that God is the Source of all. We see, but God sees all, we hear but God hears all.
We are Unreal compared to God, who is the only Real.

(28:88) All will perish but He.

Ultimately everything will return to the Source.

(10:56) He it is Who gives life and causes death, and to Him shall you all be returned.


Tank, it's quite hard for me to explain this.
It's like being on an Amish forum and explaining evolution and not knowing where to start.
So it's hard to squeeze it into a forum debate...

If you are genuinely interested then you should start by reading
'The transcedent unity of religions' by Frithjof Schuon.

Or you could comment on the creation myth of the Popol Vuh which I posted in
the thread 'Christianity & Islam'

In all other cases the debate will end in:

'Man was afraid of the unknown and of death, gave meaning and explanation to the environment
he lived in and at the same time he assured himself that gods were looking after him.
First the sun, clouds, lightning and so on were gods because he didn't understand the natural phenomenon.
Then the more he understood his environment the more the gods retreated and now God can't be found anywhere.'

If you can't define what god is, then I can safely ignore what you have to say about god and your opinion of what god is (or is not), says (or not says) or does (or does not do). Thank you for so succinctly demonstrating that god is a meaningless concept.

I was afraid it would end like this Tank, I hope you did read the rest of my post.

[Tank]

I was afraid it would end like this Tank, I hope you did read the rest of my post.

I did, in the vain hope there would be something significant and wortwhile, but unfortunatly I didn't find anything 

[iSok]

I was afraid it would end like this Tank, I hope you did read the rest of my post.

I did, in the vain hope there would be something significant and wortwhile, but unfortunatly I didn't find anything 

If you are genuinely interested, why not read the book I recommended?

[Tank]

I was afraid it would end like this Tank, I hope you did read the rest of my post.

I did, in the vain hope there would be something significant and wortwhile, but unfortunatly I didn't find anything 

If you are genuinely interested, why not read the book I recommended?

Because it is about institutinalised superstitions (religions) and mutual group delusion, not god. I can find superstition whenever I want, Islam is just a superstition, no better than any other, and no more correct than any other. No religious person I have read or talked to has ever got past the believe what I say or believe what this other person I believe, believes. No testable facts, no evidence beyond speculation and wishful thinking. That is simply not good enough anymore.

I would not buy a car from somebody who could not show me the car. I won't 'buy' a god until somebody can show me the god. And however honest and earnest and faithful you, or any other person, may be makes no difference to me I'm afraid.

[OldGit]

If you are genuinely interested then you should start by reading 'The transcedent unity of religions' by Frithjof Schuon.

You see, we already know what they've got in common: a deluded belief in a supernatural being.  An entire book would be of no interest to us when we despise the central premise.

[Crow]

@isok, Your beliefs are starting to sound very Taoist of late (slightly misconstrued of the Taoist beliefs) compared to your older posts I don't mean this in any negative way whatsoever btw.

You should check out this forum as you are obviously quite interested in the subject area (as am I).
http://www.centertao.org/forum/

Sorry folk for the off topic nature of the post.