A doctor walked up to a musician. The following conversation ensued.

Doctor: There is a God.
Musician: There is? Cool! Where is it?
Doctor: Well, God is in heaven.
Musician: Where is heaven?
Doctor: No one knows for sure. Not here? Or maybe here? No one knows.
Musician: Hmm, ok. Well when did God get there?
Doctor: No one knows. Now? Yesterday? Forever? Honestly I don't even know what time is.
Musician: Wow, heavy dude. Ok, how did God become existing?
Doctor: He was born or He always existed or he doesn't exist in that sense or he's all around us all the time. He is part of a universal bipolarity which indicates a counterpart of equal strength that some call the Devil.
Musician: Neat. Can I have some?
Doctor: Some what?
Musician: Some of what you're on, man. Haha, just kidding. Ok, what is God?
Doctor: A thought. An entity. A man, like us. A woman like her {points at female passerby}. An animal. A ghost. Bah. No one really knows.
Musician: Ok, just why is there a God?
Doctor: To love us, to guide us, to torture us, to make us question, to give us reason to NOT question, to judge us, to comfort us, to disturb us, to inspire us, to perplex us, to...shoot. You know, I have no idea honestly.
Musician: Let me get this straight. You say there's a God, but you don't know really where it is, what it is, how it is, why it is, or when it is. Is that correct?
Doctor: Yes, that is correct.
Musician: Then how can you claim that there is one for sure?
Doctor: I don't know. I just say there is.
Musician: Ok, well what if I say there isn't? What if I just disagree with you?
Doctor: Don't disagree.
Musician: Why not?
Doctor: Because God is this thing that you believe in. It's not something you see or smell or touch or hear. It's in your heart, not your senses.
Musician: My heart can't think. It's a muscle. I'm pretty sure I can prove that unlike some of the things you're asking me to believe without proof. So don't you mean God is something I feel with my brain by thinking about it?
Doctor: Yes, sure. God is all in your head.
Musician: Now we agree.

But as for real instincts. Humans don't have any. Everything the human experiences that is complex is learned behavior.

---foxjazz

Sorry, but I, personally, do see reflexes as a form of instinct.

If nothing we had as primates carried over through the process of evolution why do we have hair and canines? We really have no further need for either one, but we still have them. Why not instinct?
We can often feel, or "sense", when someone enters a room we're in. I'd call that an instinct.

Thanks for the good stuff,

---foxjazz

No problem.

See, this is what gets me----the cynicism of atheistic thought. We have no real purpose; we just ARE. I refuse to accept that.
You argue from a purely intellectual or scientific perspective, and I argue from my gut. That seems to be the basic difference here.

You argue from a purely intellectual or scientific perspective, and I argue from my gut. That seems to be the basic difference here.

The fact is we all argue from the same place. Our brains. There is no other calculating mechanism in the human being (or any other earthling, for that matter.)

Some people prefer facts, and some like conjecture and fantasy. No big...just be honest about which you choose.

Some people prefer facts

Did you read the article, or just go by what you read of the thread?
If you did read the article, you know how I feel about scientific "fact". I don't like to stand on shifting sand, and that's exactly what scientific "fact" is.


Arrogant sarcasm does not become you. Or anyone.

Since the english language is too lax on defining instinct I will put it to you this way.

Humans do NOT have complex inborn pattern of behavior which is common to the species.
Salmon actually do have this "complex inborn pattern of behavior"

I would prefer to call this instinct, but since that is too Lax a term, I will just have to define my intent more explicitly.

So Blaaaaahhh: next thing you know you will be defining Faith as "confidence" and then religion as "confidential faith or something.

~Smokin~

next thing you know you will be defining Faith as "confidence"

Confidence is one word Fox, but I think that "intuition" is a better one. Most people’s faith is rooted in at least a little bit of intuition. Intuition stems from within a deeper level of the human spirit, and it is here - within the human heart - that real wisdom and value can be found. I believe that intuition is the “seed of God within” to which the Epistle of John refers (1 John 3.9). Seeds naturally develop and grow, and it is this process of growth that leads a religionist to say things like, “Over time my faith has got stronger”. As our seed develops and grows, our intuition becomes more acute, and our spiritual awareness heightens.

It is possible for a person to reach a stage in which he or she becomes endowed with ‘more-than-intuition’, incidentally, but that’s another matter. (Jesus said that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall set us free.)

I think of Pilate as he looked at Jesus and asked..."What is truth?" The Truth was standing right in front of him and he didn't recognize it.

Jesus had said earlier that he was the "way, truth and life."

So it really comes down to....do we recognize it? I for one do believe in absoulte truth. Truth is the same yesterday, today or tomorrow. It's the same for every person, place or thing. It doesn't ever change.

1+1 will always equal 2. I find comfort in that there is such a thing as truth.

Actaully everything they say Jesus says is all hearsay anyway. Jesus never wrote a word of it.


"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." Buddha

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He"s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can"t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!
G. Calin

I find comfort in that there is such a thing as truth.

So it really comes down to....do we recognize it?

That's a good one KFC. Would we recognise Truth if we heard it or saw it? I believe that the Truth is recognizable, and that it's comforting by nature to boot.

He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He"s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can"t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

"The God that I believe in ain't short of cash." - Bono. (I agree with that!)

So foxjazz, you're saying that salmon, for example, have certain innate advantages that humans somehow, given our much more advanced state of evolution, do not?

I'll be sure to remember that, next time I'm eating them for dinner.

Keep talking.....I guess I just don't have the vast intellect required to comprehend your limited, cynical view of the human race.

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money!

---fox

Jesus (who DOES love me, and you, too, by the way, whether you acknowledge Him or not) doesn't need it, but his church does.
His church (or at least the buildings it meets in) has to exist in the real world, where bills need paid and things need repaired.

The God that I believe in ain't short of cash." - Bono. (I agree with that!)

good one. I can't outgive God. The more I give to him the more I receive back. It's amazing. When I was younger I believed in the closed fist principle. Then I realized there is no pocket in a burial shroud.

We can't receive anything if our hands are so tightly shut.

Everytime I give money to God via helping another person in need or giving to the church I see that God blesses me beyond measure. For instance twice I helped out two different families in need. Both times I wrote a check for $100. Both times soon afterwards I won $100 worth of oil. Some may say....ok coincidence. I don't believe that. It happens way too much for that to be true.

But to say it always happens that way, I'd be deceiving. Most times I give and it doesn't happen that way but to give is to bless another and that's what we are called to do without expecting anything back in return.

The way I look at it is that it's all God's anyways. I'm just giving back a portion of what he has given me.

Rightwinger there is a problem with how your thinking about instincts and atheists in general.

Atheists are not cynics. There is nothing cynical about not believing in your God.
Instincts are not necessary to having an advantage. In some species, instincts are essencial for their survival. In our species that isnt' the case.
Why you think having instincts makes a species somehow superior to another species is not good thinking.

I personally am no cynic. I believe in love. I believe in many human ideas, and ethical values. But belief in a God is not a requirement for these systems of thought.
It is good to help a friend in need, in many cases. There are many people starving to death in the world also. That is nature. There are more people starving this year than there were last year. Do you think that feeding the starving is going to help them. What about feeding deer, does that help the deer?

as Einstein said:
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

good one. I can't outgive God. The more I give to him the more I receive back. It's amazing. When I was younger I believed in the closed fist principle. Then I realized there is no pocket in a burial shroud. We can't receive anything if our hands are so tightly shut.

--KFC

Very true. That's a great way to look at it.

Atheists are not cynics

---Fox

In my opinion they, or at least many of them, are. So many atheists think they're so intelligent. So open-minded and free, because they aren't tied down by belief in an all-powerful deity. They don't accept the existence of things they can't physically see, hear, smell or touch, like all of us sloped-foreheaded, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing Believers do.

In fact, though, you have to BE open to that acceptance. You have to be willing to receive it. Close your mind to conscious thought.....just allow it; let it happen.
Kind of like feeling the flow of the "Force", I guess.

Atheists can't seem to do that; they're so tied down by their connection to the practical, the physical and tangible, that they can't open themselves up to the intangible, the spiritual.
Atheists can't, or won't, accept that there's so much more to life and the world than they themselves can perceive. You see us as much smaller and limited than we really are. This leads to a form of cynicism in which you reject so many things humanity can be and, in reality, is.

I understand somewhat where your coming from. However, when I was a Christian, I was considered closed minded. And in part I was.
However I think your incorrect. Atheists believe in many unseen things. And have many good values.

Atheists don't want to be bogged down with a belief system just for the sake of believing. It doesn't last.
We pretend we are smart. Lots of people pretend to be smart. Some are smart. But smarts is not really what is in question, its what people are taught by authority figures, to believe. And some people believe the manythings that are taught despite the falsness of the teachings.

I am certain that the peope teaching, don't think it is falsness. That is why the atheist values doubt first, and until it can be show that something is true they withhold the belief in which is being taught.

Christians and other religious sects do the same thing, with respect to other religions.
So what you can really say about atheists is (We believe in one less God than those that believe in one god).

But somehow, someway it is really difficult to get that idea across to a religious person. I know I would never have understood it in the state I was 20 years ago. I never understood how someone could just deny God. But eventually I came to an understanding its not about denial at all.
Deny implies something to be denied. An atheist doesn't think that there is a God in the first place, so how can one deny something that doesn't exist.

So really if you can see two points of view, then you can actually understand what it means to be without a belief in God.

I hope this clears it up some. Maybe it doesn't, but I have sincerely tried.
Fox

Atheists can't seem to do that; they're so tied down by their connection to the practical, the physical and tangible, that they can't open themselves up to the intangible, the spiritual. Atheists can't, or won't, accept that there's so much more to life and the world than they themselves can perceive.

yes, agree 100%. Christ kept trying to take their eyes of the physical to get them to "see" the spiritual. I think of the woman at the well in John 4. While he was talking about "spiritual" water she kept thinking "physical." Then she finally got it!! She left her waterpots behind to tell the others what she found. She realized then that the spiritual was much more important than the physical. Everything tangible is going to rot, decay, rust. It's the spiritual that lasts forever.

There's more than meets the eye. That's for sure!!

So really if you can see two points of view, then you can actually understand what it means to be without a belief in God.

That's just it Fox. We've all been where you are now. We've seen both sides. That's what we are trying to tell those who haven't seen what we see.