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	<title>Comments on: Thought Exercise: Eliminating the Word &quot;is&quot;</title>
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	<description>Welcome to my madness!</description>
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		<title>By: Ego</title>
		<link>http://halfassbackwards.com/thought-exercise-elimintating-is/comment-page-/#comment-476</link>
		<dc:creator>Ego</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:11:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://halfassbackwards.com/?p=192#comment-476</guid>
		<description>Thank you for such a great response! Very thought provoking and exactly what I needed!

I am constantly changing, both in my physical and mental &#039;world,&#039; and the more I read into spiritual and religious subjects, I find that it&#039;s becoming increasingly difficult for me to pin-point what &#039;proof/evidence&#039; of &quot;GOD&quot; really &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;. A lot of what I&#039;ve been reading talks in depth about how we each &#039;create&#039; our own unique perception of the world. &lt;em&gt;Mind over matter&lt;/em&gt;. All of this leaves me thirsty for more, and on as I go, I find I know very little. So in a sense it confuses me as to why so many people are firm in their own beliefs, yet without hard-evidence(&lt;em&gt;and many cease to question &amp; refine&lt;/em&gt;). But I guess evidence could mean &#039;something in a physical sense&#039; but it also can differ depending on that individual&#039;s own unique definition of what &#039;GOD&#039; &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;is not&lt;/em&gt;.

&lt;em&gt;Question:&lt;/em&gt;
Was &#039;GOD&#039; found when Albert Hofmann discovered LSD-25? Many people have had a religious/spiritual journey while on LSD, and most come out with an overall feeling of interconnectivity with mankind as a whole.

I guess what I am getting at now, &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt; that &quot;GOD&quot; seems to be unique to the thinker, just as a fingerprint &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for such a great response! Very thought provoking and exactly what I needed!</p>
<p>I am constantly changing, both in my physical and mental &#8216;world,&#8217; and the more I read into spiritual and religious subjects, I find that it&#8217;s becoming increasingly difficult for me to pin-point what &#8216;proof/evidence&#8217; of &#8220;GOD&#8221; really <em>is</em>. A lot of what I&#8217;ve been reading talks in depth about how we each &#8216;create&#8217; our own unique perception of the world. <em>Mind over matter</em>. All of this leaves me thirsty for more, and on as I go, I find I know very little. So in a sense it confuses me as to why so many people are firm in their own beliefs, yet without hard-evidence(<em>and many cease to question &amp; refine</em>). But I guess evidence could mean &#8216;something in a physical sense&#8217; but it also can differ depending on that individual&#8217;s own unique definition of what &#8216;GOD&#8217; <em>is</em> or <em>is not</em>.</p>
<p><em>Question:</em><br />
Was &#8216;GOD&#8217; found when Albert Hofmann discovered LSD-25? Many people have had a religious/spiritual journey while on LSD, and most come out with an overall feeling of interconnectivity with mankind as a whole.</p>
<p>I guess what I am getting at now, <em>is</em> that &#8220;GOD&#8221; seems to be unique to the thinker, just as a fingerprint <em>is</em>.</p>
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		<title>By: Liosis</title>
		<link>http://halfassbackwards.com/thought-exercise-elimintating-is/comment-page-1/#comment-477</link>
		<dc:creator>Liosis</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:27:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://halfassbackwards.com/?p=192#comment-477</guid>
		<description>I started doing this after reading too much Sartre (I had to! It fulfilled a requirement.) I do not use &#039;it appears to me&#039; but instead replace it with something more active. Being behaves in a passive, solid, foundational manner. I believe the world changes moment to moment, and I like my language to reflect what is.


What is evidence to you? A scientific experiment will not discover God. During the scientific revolution science became a way of talking about the world without appealing to religion. If anyone discovers God scientifically they have the wrong God and the wrong conception of science. I do agree that people should question their beliefs, but questioning is not the same as disbelieving. Beliefs are precious things and rather hard to come by. (Ones that do others harm like the war on terror excepted.) They should be questioned to be understood and corrected, but also nurtured and encouraged.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I started doing this after reading too much Sartre (I had to! It fulfilled a requirement.) I do not use &#8216;it appears to me&#8217; but instead replace it with something more active. Being behaves in a passive, solid, foundational manner. I believe the world changes moment to moment, and I like my language to reflect what is.</p>
<p>What is evidence to you? A scientific experiment will not discover God. During the scientific revolution science became a way of talking about the world without appealing to religion. If anyone discovers God scientifically they have the wrong God and the wrong conception of science. I do agree that people should question their beliefs, but questioning is not the same as disbelieving. Beliefs are precious things and rather hard to come by. (Ones that do others harm like the war on terror excepted.) They should be questioned to be understood and corrected, but also nurtured and encouraged.</p>
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		<title>By: Dan 'Da Man' Saso</title>
		<link>http://halfassbackwards.com/thought-exercise-elimintating-is/comment-page-1/#comment-475</link>
		<dc:creator>Dan 'Da Man' Saso</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:55:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://halfassbackwards.com/?p=192#comment-475</guid>
		<description>yum yum</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>yum yum</p>
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		<title>By: Ego</title>
		<link>http://halfassbackwards.com/thought-exercise-elimintating-is/comment-page-/#comment-473</link>
		<dc:creator>Ego</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:11:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://halfassbackwards.com/?p=192#comment-473</guid>
		<description>You said, &quot;On the subject of GOD, it appears to me that GOD exists.&quot;

That&#039;s great, you&#039;ve completely understood the point that I, as well as others are trying to make, that the theory of existence of any one thing is relative to the thought&#039;s of that individual.

...and the quoted material is basically what I was getting at(but, heavy on the subject of &#039;Christianity&#039;), point being, believe nothing &amp; question everything.

Once you begin to eliminate the &quot;is&quot; then you start understanding that things are not exactly as they seem...everyone views things differently.

-Ego</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You said, &#8220;On the subject of GOD, it appears to me that GOD exists.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s great, you&#8217;ve completely understood the point that I, as well as others are trying to make, that the theory of existence of any one thing is relative to the thought&#8217;s of that individual.</p>
<p>&#8230;and the quoted material is basically what I was getting at(but, heavy on the subject of &#8216;Christianity&#8217;), point being, believe nothing &amp; question everything.</p>
<p>Once you begin to eliminate the &#8220;is&#8221; then you start understanding that things are not exactly as they seem&#8230;everyone views things differently.</p>
<p>-Ego</p>
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		<title>By: Dan 'Da Man' Saso</title>
		<link>http://halfassbackwards.com/thought-exercise-elimintating-is/comment-page-1/#comment-474</link>
		<dc:creator>Dan 'Da Man' Saso</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:57:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://halfassbackwards.com/?p=192#comment-474</guid>
		<description>On the subject of GOD, it appears to me that GOD exists.

&quot;Even if the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of Christianity does not exist, that does not mean that there is no God at all. We cannot fully comprehend God, therefore we cannot be completely sure that He possesses or does not possess certain qualities (such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence). Thus, any argument that attacks these qualities in an attempt to disprove the existence of God is ultimately irrelevant, since we do not know if God has these qualities or not. However, I believe in the Christian God, so my arguments will defend the existence of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of Christianity.&quot;

&quot;The air we breathe cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched, yet it most certainly exists. The force of gravity cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched, yet we know that it exists. Emotions, values, beliefs, and thoughts cannot be found by using any of our senses, yet they are as real as rocks or trees. Emotions can be &quot;felt&quot;, but this feeling is not physical. Thus, simply because something cannot be found through the use of the five senses does not mean that it does not exist&quot;

Some atheists say that no God has been found through the use of the senses, therefore no God exists. But simply because God cannot be found by way of the senses does not mean that He does not exist. Christians believe in a supernatural or non-material God. They believe that God has manifested Himself in material form and in material ways on certain occasions (such as the Incarnation, and when He spoke audibly to Moses at Mount Sinai). However, God is spirit (John 4:24), and in His &quot;normal&quot; state He cannot be found by the use of the senses. Therefore, any attempt to reach God by way of the senses would be virtually pointless.

&quot;Wind can only be seen indirectly (leaves moving, dust scattering, trees swaying, etc). Christians believe that, like wind, God can be seen indirectly. They believe that He can be seen indirectly through Creation (Nature), conscience, morality, etc. They also believe that a &quot;touch&quot; from God can be &quot;felt&quot;. This feeling is spiritual, though sometimes it may produce physical or emotional sensations. Thus, even though a natural or material God does not exist, that does not mean that there is no God at all. A supernatural or non-material God can be just as real as a natural, tangible God.&quot;

&quot;The word &#039;conscience&#039; can be defined as &quot;the internal sense of what is right and wrong that governs somebody&#039;s thoughts and actions, urging him or her to do right rather than wrong.&quot; This &#039;conscience&#039; is consistent, it always urges us to do right, and is not merely one of our desires or preferences. Feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Suppose you hear a cry for help from a drowning man. You will probably feel two desires: one desire to give help, the other a desire to keep out of danger. But you will find inside you, in addition to these two desires, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. This thing that judges between the two impulses, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. This third thing is our &#039;conscience&#039;.&quot;
This perfect design of the universe hardly seems to be the outcome of chance.

..I could continue to quote the rest of this website, &quot;http://aaron_mp.tripod.com/id2.html&quot;   however that would take too long.  In short, I agree with most of what this author has to say.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On the subject of GOD, it appears to me that GOD exists.</p>
<p>&#8220;Even if the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of Christianity does not exist, that does not mean that there is no God at all. We cannot fully comprehend God, therefore we cannot be completely sure that He possesses or does not possess certain qualities (such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence). Thus, any argument that attacks these qualities in an attempt to disprove the existence of God is ultimately irrelevant, since we do not know if God has these qualities or not. However, I believe in the Christian God, so my arguments will defend the existence of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of Christianity.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The air we breathe cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched, yet it most certainly exists. The force of gravity cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched, yet we know that it exists. Emotions, values, beliefs, and thoughts cannot be found by using any of our senses, yet they are as real as rocks or trees. Emotions can be &#8220;felt&#8221;, but this feeling is not physical. Thus, simply because something cannot be found through the use of the five senses does not mean that it does not exist&#8221;</p>
<p>Some atheists say that no God has been found through the use of the senses, therefore no God exists. But simply because God cannot be found by way of the senses does not mean that He does not exist. Christians believe in a supernatural or non-material God. They believe that God has manifested Himself in material form and in material ways on certain occasions (such as the Incarnation, and when He spoke audibly to Moses at Mount Sinai). However, God is spirit (John 4:24), and in His &#8220;normal&#8221; state He cannot be found by the use of the senses. Therefore, any attempt to reach God by way of the senses would be virtually pointless.</p>
<p>&#8220;Wind can only be seen indirectly (leaves moving, dust scattering, trees swaying, etc). Christians believe that, like wind, God can be seen indirectly. They believe that He can be seen indirectly through Creation (Nature), conscience, morality, etc. They also believe that a &#8220;touch&#8221; from God can be &#8220;felt&#8221;. This feeling is spiritual, though sometimes it may produce physical or emotional sensations. Thus, even though a natural or material God does not exist, that does not mean that there is no God at all. A supernatural or non-material God can be just as real as a natural, tangible God.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The word &#8216;conscience&#8217; can be defined as &#8220;the internal sense of what is right and wrong that governs somebody&#8217;s thoughts and actions, urging him or her to do right rather than wrong.&#8221; This &#8216;conscience&#8217; is consistent, it always urges us to do right, and is not merely one of our desires or preferences. Feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Suppose you hear a cry for help from a drowning man. You will probably feel two desires: one desire to give help, the other a desire to keep out of danger. But you will find inside you, in addition to these two desires, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. This thing that judges between the two impulses, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. This third thing is our &#8216;conscience&#8217;.&#8221;<br />
This perfect design of the universe hardly seems to be the outcome of chance.</p>
<p>..I could continue to quote the rest of this website, &#8220;http://aaron_mp.tripod.com/id2.html&#8221;   however that would take too long.  In short, I agree with most of what this author has to say.</p>
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