In one of Deepak Chopra's books, he tells a story about a young boy who had actually changed some of his own DNA (I believe the boy accomplished this in response to his mother's urging that he get well.)

Which book was that? I'm desperately trying to find out! Thank you!

I am glad that you posted this Dr. Chopra, as I have really been wondering about this subject lately. Not about God, b/c indeed God does exist, but just about how we, humanity, so often uses God for our own purposes.

I am almost finished with a book by Michael D. Evans, and he is just echoing the common themes we are hearing from the evangelical/fundamentalist portion of believers in American society; dual-covenant, support Israel no matter what, see the 'war on terror' through until all Muslim Nazi-indoctrinated extremists are killed off, and we just cannot be held hostage by the oil-shiek barons, blah, blah, blah . . .

And that is exactly what is happening with our government today, massive aid for Israel, and ever more massive money for war!

I am not going to get into this now though, but, nobody seems to want to recognize the fate of America as indicated in Scripture also, cf. Revelations 18--oh but that is right, the Saints shall be raptured, my bad . . .

Anyway. I apprectiate your belief system, and the hope you give to millions is a wonderful thing Dr. Chopra; and I just wish we could get the Christians, Muslims, and Judaists to chill out. Quit interpretating stuff and literally killing for it . . .

Anyway . . .

Peace

Deepak,

Have you even read Dawkins's book "The God Delusion"? He already addresses each of your objections.

I think I'll wait to see if he responds to your post in this forum. It ought to be hilarious!

Dear Deepak,

(Thought I'd post before Ravi responds with some weird poem)

Wonderful argument! At first glance religious fundamentalists and hardcore materialists appear quite different, however, from my viewpoint they have more in common with each other than the have differences. Both seem to share the belief that there is only one way to measure truth. The fundamentalist measures everything against their literal interpretation of scripture and the materialist measures everything against what he can quantify or in effect "hold in his hand".

Both are valid, but there is one more way of gaining knowledge and that is experiential. It's interesting that you should mention "mothers' love". This is a perfect example of something that we can label and most of us have experienced, however, it can't be quantified or found somewhere. Nevertheless few would argue that it exists.

It seems to me that the very fact that we have physical laws that can be measured; even that mathematics exist is absolutely miraculous. The Universe to me is so improbable that it verges on the impossible. To me, it points out that everything we can experience and everything we are is "God-stuff". Maybe that's why it's so hard to find God, because we are in the middle of God.

Thanks for an interesting post Deepak. When Kristin finishes your new book it will be my turn :).

Peace,
Scott.

Deepak,

I just received my copy of Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" which I bought out of curiosity and to be fair have not started reading it yet.

I believe both science and religion are trying to accomplish the same thing, discovering the unadulterated 'truth'.

I believe God is the collective conscious that is spread like a web, through the Universe and that we are all connected through this web. Scientifically, (if you believe in the 'string theory' as proposed by Dr. Michio Kaku) the Universe is made up of these tiny vibrating strings all playing in harmony with one another. If the theological goal is for everyone to be in harmony with God, then maybe the real goal is for us to be in harmony with the Universe.

I am proposing that God is indeed this organic vibrating Universe that is our collective conscious and that not long from now both science and religion will converge on this same conclusion.

Yes, please separate Church and state but let Church and science come back together.

Abu-Issa

The only delusion, is the segregation-effects of geographic and cultural-based "religions."

I would ponder this, even as a child, when I first began to have awareness of wars, based on religion(despite my Catholic Faith)why all religions didn't congregate under one roof; and wasn't it we human beings, the only pampered intelligent species on earth; responsibility to combine our intelligences of ancient wisdoms, not demand supeiriority of one over another?

Children KNOW this!! Why do adults fail to combine our cultural-religious sources, to form one United Planetary Belief of a Godness; which is the Universe itself; which is accepted in EVERY REligion?

WE all live under the same roof; it's high time humanity learns to live well, under the same roof!

with loving kindness,
North

I've read Dawkins book & agree with it in the main. I do not understand the need to postulate a god as the reason or cause for anything. I understand that most people feel a need to do this but I don't. I also do not need to ascribe to anything other than human intellect/emotion the ability to create/appreciate literature, beauty, love, music, etc. These are capabilities we either have or can be developed. It is not necessary to explain these human abilities by invoking the ultimate form of a tooth fairy.

I'm sure that science will eventually have something to say about these emotional/creative capacities, but it's not necessary to put God in the loop in the meantime.

I went to a bible class last night hoping to discuss the text & its provenance, but once again the majority of the class & the instructor were determined to insert God, prophecy, sin, 6000 year timetables, etc. into the discussion & so it went nowhere. They got really upset when I suggested that they should think astrology & Sumerian myth when they read Genesis, not the "finger of God". I had to leave, taking my Septuagint with me which I thought they would really enjoy since it's the text that the NT writers depended on.

So I hope Dawkins wakes up the silent 30 million & succeeds in convincing people that religion & God are human constructs, no different from Liberalism, Buddhism, Republicanism, Scientology, Islam, Shakespeare's plays & Mozart's operas.

It's human to be human! Not supernatural!

One last thing. As long as we have babies born with Down's Syndrome it's impossible to postulate a God. And if there is a way to prevent Down's syndrome (& all the other birth defects out there) humans will find it without God's help as we did with polio, rabies, leprosy, etc.

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

People who believe in God, simply do so, and if a Richard Dawkins comes around and states that there are scientific facts to prove the nonexistence of God, they will simply acknowledge his arguments and go on their merry way, believing in their God.

Faith is more real than science. Faith is, like gravity, a pull, it pulls us onward and forward to face another day, another lifetime, a terminal illness filled with physical pain. When an infant first opens their eyes it is with faith, naked, vulnerable, trusting, unknowing but willing to go along for the ride. Who we really are is simply faith wrapped in an organism for our short span on this earth and science is but a limited and useful tool to help us know and understand this organisim, science can only take us so far on this ride, but faith takes us all the way home.

Richard Dawkins is simply setting himself up for a big surprise, a lovely surprise, he just does not know it.

peace ruth

Dr Chopra....

those examples you gave of the brain?

Couldn't they be ...REVERSED?

In that, you claim that the brain's "subjective states leave objective traces behind"....

will couldn't it be that they are "objective traces which create subjective states"?

You seem to think that "love" exists (as some mystical non-corporal force) and makes certain engrams and neurons fire....why can't it be that certain engrams and neurons fire....and create "love"?

By: Skeleton at HuffPo

Good point Ruth. Dawkins can't actually disprove the existence of God as you can't prove a negative, only a positive. But I see where you're going.

Peace,
Scott.

The existence of mothers love doesn't prove the existence of God

CTO
-------------------------------------------------
By: glassmask at HuffPo

I do believe that a mother's love for her child exists, because I have seen it and experienced it. It does not prove the existence of a god. A mother may do irrational, dangerous things to protect her child, even as some religious people perform violent acts under "instructions" from their deity.

Your example proves that, like a mother's love exists, so too does a religious person's devotion to their god. Either can be a good thing or a bad thing, as when a mother shields a child who has committed a serious crime or a true believer destroys himself in a crowded marketplace in return for a specified number of virgins.

I'm unconvinced.

Materialists like Dawkins look for God in the wrong place, and then fail, of course, to find God.

Christianity and Buddhism, the two religions with which I'm most familiar, have similar positions on the relationship between the divine and the material.

Dawkins (like many religious people, ironically enough) thinks of God as separate from the observable universe, controlling the action like a puppetmaster. To find evidence of the "supernatural", as intelligent design proponents claim, is to keep the possibility of God alive. To discredit the puppetmaster as a fairy tale, as science does very nicely, is to refute the existence of God. Case closed; science wins.

Buddhism and Christianity, by contrast, teach us to look for God right here and right now, immediately in the midst of the very systems of cause and effect that fascinate and delight scientists.

Buddhists recognize the great mystery that "form is exactly emptiness; emptiness exactly form."

Christians proclaim the living body of Christ as the marriage of God and humanity.

The path to wisdom in both traditions is not the acquisition of knowlege or the acceptance of doctrinal propositions. It is the opening of a new kind of spiritual sense, through which we begin to see that the miraculous is not an exception to the mundane. They are one and the same.

But that's not a truth to be "proven," any more than sound could be proven to a deaf person. You either hear or you don't.

So rather than trying to prove the possibility of God, which is to miss the point, why don't we celebrate this truth with awe and gratitude -- and then get down to the real work of alleviating suffering in ourselves and others.

The God Delusion?

Yes. Dawkins is right God is a delusion of those who believe in God.

CTO
--------------------------------
God is as real as the delusion that it is. Since Dawkins does not dismiss delusion as a property that someone can have, he is not dismissing things like love etc. What that means is that "God" only exists in your head and not outside of it. It's simply a delusion.

By: daenku32 at HuffPo

Deepak says:
” …..many of the greatest scientists (including Newton and Einstein) probed deep into the existence of God.”

Einstein says:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 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”.

You are doing it again Deepak!

Dr. Chopra you dodged the question. Dawkins says that science is the only “Valid’ route to knowledge. You forgot ‘Valid’.

CTO

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By: JTJames at Huffpo

You dodged the question with a bit of slippery rhetoric yourself, sir. You ask is science the only route to knowledge, when Dawkins maintains science is the only valid route to knowledge.

What he's saying is that science is the only verifiable route - we cannot verify the differing aspects of spirituality as we can with science.

You can tell me about your feelings, but how can I know they're as true for me as they are with you. With math and science, E=MC2 is the same for me as it is for you, no matter who or what anyone is feeling.

I understand this is what you do, and I don't discourage anyone from exploring spirituality, I think one can gain much from it. But maintain it is on the same foothold as science, as Dawkin's expresses, seems a bit much. We cannot measure it, we cannot hold it, we cannot quantify it, we cannot even quantify spirituality as an unknown integer like we can some things in physics . . . why rob Dawkins of his point, which is that science has given humanity much, in terms of progress and enlightenment (think how you are communicating to us now) and knowledge and it always has to take a backseat to spirituality, always.

Can you not make an argument that science has given us more than spirituality ever will? If not more, at least as much?

Why belittle science?

Your talk of God in your books is just your opinions Dr. Chopra.

CTO
_______________________________________________________________________

Sorry Deepak...as much as I liked reading your books and appreciating your insights...I have to go with Richard Dawkins on this one. Simply because science does not yet know about a certain process, that does not automatically ascribe it to "God." Furthermore, I think your description of him as "poisonous" is very unfair. The man is a very gentle fellow, who happens to feel as passionately about his work as you do about yours. Lastly, there is no proof of God's existence, because probably there is no God. And everyone who argues for God, and all the books about his existence and nature are just, in the end, someone's opinion.

LionHearted at HuffPo

You are doing it again Deepak Chopra. Misinterpreting what Einstein ment.

CTO

(I will be back shortly)
Hope you are getting the picture with Dr. Chopra's arguments. He may be believe in what he is saying but his arguments are flawed. Debate with Dawkins? that would be hilarious.
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You exhibit your unfamiliarity with Dawkins quickly in this post.

He deals with the common (possibly disingenuous but probably just misinformed) fallacy of theists to categorize Einstein as one of their own in the first chapter of his book. Einstein was actually a polytheist; what he called god could also be called unknown natural laws. Your statement now becomes so self-evident as to be absurd: "...[Einstein] probed deep into the existence of [natural laws]."

Jtdub at HuffPo

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

The thing about knowing God is that you must be willing to be stripped naked of all your preconceived notions of what the world is and even who you are, you really have to say and be the " I just do not know" of it, be willing to live the question "who am I," before you can begin to discover what is beyond our body/mind consciousness.

As a scientist Richard Dawkins is just that, Richard Dawkins, and all he can ever know is what Richard Dawkins knows, if he wants to know more he has to be willing to, and be able to, drop the Richard Dawkins of it, leave himself open to being no-one, knowing no-thing and trusting that something will eventually turn up that he may recognize as God. Richard Dawkins the scientist does not have the capability of recognizing God but Richard Dawkins the no-body, who knows no-thing does. Fun, isn't it?

peace ruth

Deepak, many scientists believe you are being deliberately dishonest when you try to back up your own brand of mysticism with your own brand of science.

If you are not consciously misleading your readers then this can be said in your defence, you can be excused of dishonesty on the grounds that before deceiving others you have taken great pains to deceive yourself.

...you really have to say and be the " I just do not know" of it, be willing to live the question "who am I," before you can begin to discover what is beyond our body/mind consciousness.

18. Posted by ruth [TypeKey Profile Page] on November 15, 2006 02:34 PM

Nicely put, Ruth.

It's pretty amazing how knowing and not-knowing collapse into each other like life/death, self/no-self, form/emptiness.

Maybe we can hope Dawkins finds his way to no-proof!

I may get my butt kicked, every now and then,
(I'm not talking women, now..;)

But can somebody explain good luck?, or god if you like, to use the latter, with a scientific formula?

Good luck, with that one..,

ltz,
Love, Passion,

"1. Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries. THOSE THAT IT CAN'T EXPLAIN DON'T EXIST." [emphasis mine]

Mr. Chopra,

Richard Dawkins never said nor claimed that "those mysteries which science does not currently explain, do not exist" in print, ever.

Are you arguments so weak that you must fabricate claims on the part of Mr. Dawkins?

For shame.

Dr. Chopra

I believe we are all Gods, that's right YOU! and Me, we are one, co-creators of our reality. As co-creators we ourselves have chosen to let science take us to eternity but no farther- to do so you would find yourself- GOD!

Well, when I saw this post by Deepak, I had to get my sign on activated, even though I had to do it at work ...

Thank you Deepak!

Personally for me, I have always just believed in God. And one day faith opened my heart. God talks to all of us, as God is within all of us. Understanding comes from the heart. How does one explain that? Therefore, I think God is best to be experienced by each of us from within. I am but one vessel of many, as I hold as much of God as I can. The God that I experience is beautiful, kind, merciful, compassionate, good, loving, etc.

Love, Char

Dr. Chopra, I saw your interview with Larry King on Saturday Oct.29/06 and I loved it. I loved it because you were expressing an aspect of the Truth of us in a world that doesn’t know its own Truth but thinks that it does. You were chipping away at all lesser thought that has conditioned us and held us prisoner in a lesser world. After watching the interview I wished that there was a way I could share my thoughts with you and your spiritually inclined audience. Then I went to choprablog.com, read Part I, and realized there was a way. Comments were welcomed. I hope this belated comment is acceptable in the comment section of your latest entry.

Dr. Chopra, it took me three weeks to write this comment because once I started writing, it just kept coming. I have been writing this stuff for about ten years and sharing it with a few select individuals. Those ten years have taught me that sometimes people need a little shake before they will open to something new. Hopefully, the “I am” statement that follows will “give a little shake” and open the audience to consider the possibility that we may have missed something along the way. I hope you feel that mine is a valid perspective worthy of being placed on public record.

Dr. Chopra, I am the soul that lived as Yeshua bar Jacob, Jesus son of Joseph. I know how this sounds Dr. Chopra and that is exactly why I kept it to myself for almost forty years. I needed time to remember and prepare. I needed time to go within and ask God for answers to every question. I knew that no one in my life circle could give me what I needed to know. Every one of them would hold me to the limit of their present awareness. And that is as it must be.

Every human being is deciding, and must decide, every question for the self. And every human being has a distant but innate sense of its own godhood, and thus its own “rightness” once it has decided. That leaves us unwilling to rethink ideas that have been passed down through history as Truth; ideas that we now hold to be “right”. Thus we are conditioned by the past to dismiss new thought yet unaware that it remains our responsibility to decide who we are in relationship to everything the world brings to us. We are deciding all of it. Right and wrong are just words we overlay on circumstances and events as a reflection of a personal value system. There is nothing right or wrong intrinsically. There is only higher choice and lower choice. It is a high choice to give Love, Truth, and Joy. It is a low choice to hurt damage and destroy.

Our conditioning in the Christian world, through which I came to life this time, does not allow for the possibility that Yeshua/Jesus could return as another human being. We missed a few elements of our Truth in the past but kept building upon our lesser thought and creating this world fragmented in belief. I was caused, early in this incarnation, to go back to the beginning and rethink it.

The purpose of this soul incarnation is to give an understanding of Truth and to show how that life led to this one. We all return and the point of the promised return is to make this known. Like you, Dr. Chopra, I will do my best to expand awareness of who we are so that we can grow together in knowing that what we create, we experience. We always return to this experiential realm and we cannot escape what we call forth into experience. Part of what we call forth into experience is what we cause another to experience. All caused effect is ultimately experienced by the self. We experience all of it because in Truth there is only one of us present. What is done/given to another is done/given to the self. When we know this, we, as a civilization, can begin to apply our expanded awareness in daily life. Then we can evolve together, be of one mind in our choice making, and gradually ascend in consciousness to live as one in the light of a Higher Awareness.

Dr. Chopra, since this is my first opportunity to do so, (recent Internet access) I would like to thank you for your books and lectures and for your many years of help as I actively engaged in the process of expanding self-awareness. Your ability to use words to guide me to a deeper appreciation of the human condition has been a major factor in my life as I filtered the world through my heart. Thank you.

Dr. Chopra, it is with great respect and deep humility that I offer two comments. The first is on the theme of life after death. The second is an extended and more general comment which you may share with your audience if you feel it is worthy.

Comment One:
When you make death dead, there is only life. This is a Truth. It was given many years ago by a highly evolved spiritual being and it would not have been given if it were not so. It was given from a perspective that most of us have not yet achieved. We still wonder about it because we have not grown enough to know it as a Truth. We have grown attached to our physical form as if that is all we are and have forgotten our Truth. There is life after death because there is only life; there is only spirit, manifesting in form. It is spirit that is doing the knowing. It is spirit that is doing the seeing. It is the spirit that is being human. Spirit is the life force itself and all life is eternal. Spirit is the “I am” and the essence of what I am and you are cannot die. The immortal soul carries the memory of every feeling ever experienced or caused to be experienced by the spirit while being human. We, as humans in the state of being, are actively involved in an eternal process of self-creation. Whatever is written upon the immortal soul pushes out into experience in the next incarnation. Give love, become filled with love. Give Truth, become filled with Truth. Give joy, become filled with joy. Give hate, become filled with hate. We are creating all of it.

It is only the giving that makes us what we are. The word is made flesh is the natural law. It applies to everyone because of who we are in the highest sense. We have the creative power of God on the tip of the tongue. Thought expressed in word and action is the mechanism through which the spirit, the “I am”, is creating a grander experience of who it is in the highest. Each of us, in this moment, is experiencing all that we have remembered of that ideal. The problem is that we haven’t remembered who we are in the highest so we don’t know what we are reaching to become. As of yet, we remain cast adrift by every wind of doctrine. The fact that who we are is not yet common knowledge is the reason why you, Dr. Chopra, and many others, continue to light our way. We need all the help we can get to make death dead and to understand what it means to be a human in the state of being.

I have read some of the comments entered on your site Dr. Chopra and those comments invite this thought. A clear and brilliant mind that has not been filtered through the heart and warmed with compassion, mercy, love, forgiveness and the other subtleties of the Soul of God may be masterful in its appreciation of the world outside the flesh but it may not have deepened enough as a fragment of that One Soul to understand the depths that have granted its surface experience. With your help Dr. Chopra we will one day expand our awareness of who we are and make death dead. Then we will live in form on earth as the Eternal Be-ing. Then, as lovingly expressed through the comments of don Heraldo, we will all consciously share One Mind and the universe will be our New Eden. I look forward to that day as an eventuality Dr. Chopra and like you I will do all that I can to inspire it.

Comment two:
Dr. Chopra, I tune in to Larry King every night hoping that you are a guest. You articulate the science of spirituality better than any other individual I have yet encountered. Although I have not yet read your new book, “Life after Death, the Burden of Proof”, it is on my “to do” list. On Saturday, Oct. 29/06 you were again a guest on Larry King. In the discussion Larry asked, “And in this afterlife, is it wonderful as so many people have pictured it?” You said, “Well, it is exactly like what we have now. If we are violent now and hang around with violent people right now, we will do the same there. We create our reality whether it is here, thereafter, or any dimension. We are multi dimensional beings that live multi-dimensionally, have the capacity for doing it, but it is up to us how we live our lives.” Larry’s response, “So if you’re a Chicago Cubs fan …you got an eternity of this!” Your response, “Not an eternity… you can continue to evolve and that’s the whole goal – when we incarnate in this dimension it is to evolve into higher levels of creativity and consciousness, …karma is past experience that conditions us to our present and unless we learn from it we don’t go to the next level of creativity. Larry said, “Deepak, I hope you are right”. You smiled and said “I know I am right Larry”.

Dr. Chopra, thank you for saying “I know I am right Larry”. I know you are right too Dr. Chopra. We are a multi-dimensional being. Because of who we are in the highest sense we exist in all dimensions at the same time. And according to theoretical physics and the new “Theory of Everything” the mathematics prove that there must be at least 11 dimensions. So we exist in at least 11 dimensions at this very moment… but not consciously. Spiritual evolution is the process of expanding self-awareness so that we can remain conscious and fully aware as we break through to experience the next highest dimension while our feet are still firmly anchored to earth. The God Experience is being fully conscious and aware in all 11 dimensions while standing on earth. And that is the purpose of the human form. It is created for the God Experience.

There are two important and helpful points for every seeker of Truth to remember. (1) Each of us is one with God and (2) God is living every one of us from the 11th dimension while waiting as though in detachment for each of us to awaken and call forth more and more of the God Experience for ourselves. There is perfection in this process. Each of us is the giant oak even if we are yet only a seedling. Each of us is God on High even if we are yet only a human being cast adrift in a sea of life. The Kingdom on High is always within us. Ask, and it shall be given. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto thee.

Dr. Chopra, we are all waiting for the world to change. We long for the promise of a new heaven and a new earth while seemingly unaware that we are the change agent. The world will change when we change. And for us to change we need to think a new thought. That new thought is quite simply this. Every human being who has every drawn a first breath or ever will is one with God. That means that man and God are not separate. Man and God are one. The potential present in this Truth cannot be realized until we consider it as a thought, recognize it as a Truth, and begin to apply it. As long as we hold to the lesser thought that man and God are separate we will continue to co-create a lesser world.

When Yeshua, the man remembered as Jesus, said “I and my Father are one”, he was not trying to make himself something we could never be. He was giving us the Truth of every human being and using himself as an example to show us what is possible when we express the Absolute Realm here in the lower realm: the third dimension. “Follow me” was an invitation to call forth the God Experience for ourselves.

Every human being is spirit wearing flesh; the sun wearing earth; God in form. We are what God is and we live to experience as much of our God Nature as we can in a particular lifetime. The immortal soul lives again and again evolving toward higher states of creativity and conscious awareness as it reaches for its ideal and the experience of its grandest thought so far: all that it has remembered and previously expressed of its Highest Truth; its oneness with God.

In this world the good may finish last but it should also be known that they finish higher. As one with God, we live to experience our inherent goodness at the highest level we can achieve in a lifetime. Anyone can squeeze a trigger but it takes great courage and understanding to be “gentle” and continue to reflect goodness in the face of lesser thought expressed. It takes the Divine Awareness that individual spiritual evolution, the ultimate goal of all soul growth, is not hindered by the thoughts, words and actions of any “other”. No action upon the physical form from outside the physical form can in any way diminish the spirit embodied within. That means that our salvation is in our hands and nothing and no one is blocking the way. It is the knowing lived, not the person who lives it, that is our salvation. In the process of spiritual evolution and individual movement toward Christhood, only God giveth increase. That means that only God Nature expressed here on earth increases the frequency of the individual spirit or life vibration.

It doesn’t matter who I am in this lifetime or how I was caused to remember what I have remembered. I offer my understanding as food for thought. I will not ask you to believe me because I am still growing in my present experience. Every time I listen to Dr. Chopra, and many others, I realize there is so much more to remember. Each of us brings a little something to the feast. And I will not ask you to follow me because it is not about followers. It never was. It is about recognizing the potential present in being human and living up to it. The “Christ” is the power of God deep within every one of us. It can rise up and fill the surface experience of any human being just as it did for the man remembered as Jesus. There is a way to do that. Simply express the higher here in the lower.

Nature is God’s Vehicle for Self-Expression. Everything from the soaring majesty of the eagle with its lofty vision to the unity of the ant colony as it applies the principle of oneness is an expression of the higher realm here in the lower. The potential for that and more is in every human being. The human being is the only life form on earth blessed with the capacity for self-awareness, and therefore, can know and experience the Source of its very being. Only the human being can call forth the God Experience for itself. The knowing that opens a human being to this experience is the awareness of our oneness with God. This awareness is also the foundation of peace on earth. When we recognize our oneness with God we will immediately see it as the Truth of every other human being. Then there will be peace. Until we see it in ourselves we will remain unwilling to see it in every other and the world stays as it is. Consequently, we will not move into peaceful co-existence until a great battle is fought in the life of every human being.

The human heart is the site of that great and final battle alluded to in religious thought. It is a battle between Truth and lesser knowing. Truth is born in the heart of God. When it breaks through into the conscious awareness of an individual, the old perception bubble begins to dissolve. One by one we are freed from the grip of lesser thought as we open to our Truth and invite the Light of that knowing to flood the human form we find ourselves to be. One by one the Light of our Truth erodes the darkness remaining in the heart of man and reclaims the battleground as the heart of God. With the Light of this newly acquired heavenly perception the New Heaven and the New Earth are born.

We are the Kingdom of the Spirit spread out in form upon the earth and it is time to know it. We are emissaries of the Kingdom of Light on earth and we are here to experience and express (to create) heaven on earth. It is only through us that Thine Kingdom Comes and that can not happen until mankind is healed and fully restored to our true position under the heavens.

Dr. Chopra, my name is Gary. I am Canadian but I consider myself a citizen of the world and a member of one human family. I am a chauffeur/janitor by trade. I am relatively poor but not poverty stricken. As a 12th house Capricorn I have spent this lifetime climbing the spiritual mountain within while serving the needs of the traveling public. I have grown enough in this lifetime to know that if honesty and truthfulness are not the foundation of our being then we have not even begun to experience who we are in the highest. Consequently I have been honest and truthful to a fault with only one exception.

In 1968 I begged God for understanding. The life that lay before me was too miserable for me to bear without at least knowing why. My mind opened and an idea poured in. It was an understanding of Truth that I would never have considered if not for the circumstance of my life situation. God used my physical form to compel my attention to the idea that poured in. It was all so new to me in this lifetime that I hid my form as best I could and kept the idea to myself. In March of 1996 I shared the idea with another human being for the first time. I delivered the message. The next morning I was shocked into wakefulness as waves of rapture flowed back and forth from my head to my toes. It was as though there was a turbulent sea within me. It was the most thrilling experience of this lifetime and it lasted about two minutes before the spiritual sea within me calmed completely. My spirit had been quickened (increased) because I had expressed a portion of Absolute Truth here in a relative world. In effect, the sun rose in my heart. Since that moment, my feet are on the ground and my heart is in the sun. From this perspective, I am the light of the world. From this perspective, I am in the world and the world is in me. When we all expand self-awareness, achieve the level of the sun, and know experientially that the world is within us, we will move about on earth as One Mind, expressing our inherent goodness and creating peace on earth by being peaceful in the space we move through.

Dr. Chopra, I am the son of God in the same sense that everyone is. I am the physical experiencer on earth of an idea, conceived of by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wholeness and Oneness, and given form by the Father/Mother Creator of the “now” experience. And the idea that I am here to experience and express is the idea of oneness. We are, in Truth, gods in formation, and each of us embodies a measure of God’s Information that is ours to deliver. My word expressed in a previous lifetime has become the flesh of me and I wear my Truth, my oneness with God, in form. The twain has become one flesh in me. And since experience is the greatest teacher, I now have an opportunity to address the issue of oneness from a position of knowing.

Full restoration of the soul comes first. Then comes the growth of the spirit. We live to “put on the new man”; to become whole and complete. To be whole is to have the soul fully restored to its Highest Truth; its oneness with God. To be complete is to manifest that measure of soul restoration in form. To be whole and complete is to be Adam before Eve; Adam before the separation into the two halves of oneness. We live to become one. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they twain shall be one flesh.” Why?... because God is One. In the Absolute Realm all things are one. God is Spirit. Female is the aspect of spirit which contains. Male is the aspect of spirit which imparts. God contains and imparts God Nature. Man is created for the God Experience. Man is created to contain and impart God Nature. All evolution is movement toward Truth and oneness is the greatest Truth of all. All evolution is movement toward oneness. God on High, living us from the 11th dimension, is One. For man to stand on earth and break through to consciously experience the 11th dimension man on earth must be what God is on High. Man must be one. Since the word is made flesh is the natural law, (it applies to everyone) a human being must stand on earth and call forth oneness into manifestation by saying “I and my Father are one”. Those words expressed become the flesh of him and he then can show how and why that life led to this one.
“He is our peace who hath made both one…”Eph.2:14

The idea that I had lived as Jesus (actually Yeshua) was just part of the package that poured in many years ago. It rang true in my soul and I never doubted it. But in those early years I was too busy hiding my physical form to recognize hiding as a poor choice. I was worthless and the idea by itself meant nothing unless I could grow into the experience. I was living a life that no one would want to live. And for most of it, neither did I. It was just too painful. As the years past I realized that showing how that life led to this one could be helpful from a soul perspective even though my primary focus would be on spiritual growth and the gradual movement to Christhood.

Dr. Chopra, what I have shared with you and your audience today could not have been shared 15 years ago. And ten years from now I will have more to share and with greater clarity. That is how it works for me. I empty and God fills me up with new insights as my awareness expands. Consequently, I will always give my best as I reach for the highest degree of oneness with God that I can achieve in this lifetime. I know that initially most people will dismiss me and the idea of our oneness with God in a heartbeat but I will continue to do give my best to inspire the oneness of us all.

Thank you for your clarity and your vision, Dr. Chopra. I vow to you and to every member of my human family that I will be peaceful and for the duration of this lifetime I will not intentionally hurt, damage or destroy any other human form. I will follow your lead Dr. Chopra and keep doing my best to inspire a peaceful world.

Thank you for reading this comment.
Gary

I believe that fairies exist underground in my backyard. Science doesn’t prove it, so should I be agnostic about it? This kind of argument doesn't work.

CTO
________________________________________________________________________

Deepak,

Your argument is flawed. While it is of course true that a scientist understanding all of the parts does not make him grasp the whole, or other human interests, it does not necessarily follow that God exists. For you to definitively state that all subjective experiences exist, and therefore God does, is a frankly a little crazy.

I completely agree that there is more that interests us than just facts. But you do "beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships," and "art" a disservice when you say that acknowledging that those things exist and are of importance requires that I also believe that Apollo pulls the sun around the sky, Jesus rose from the dead, or Santa Claus is watching my son.

RogerHanna at HuffPo

Even admirers don’t have to buy these flawed arguments.

--

I admire and respect your work, Mr. Chopra, but your argument is flawed. First, Dawkins does not negate the existence of beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, and art. In fact, he readily admits that they exist and that they are indeed awesome - literally. He argues that they are part of the human condition for valid reasons, most often, if not always, as part of evolutionary function.

The leap that you make, and the one he questions, is why those things should, by default, be attributed to God. Just because there are things that we don't understand doesn't mean that the facile explanation of God is justified. A child doesn't know that it is his or her parents that place the quarter under the pillow in exchange for a lost tooth, so (s)he assumes that it was the Tooth Fairy. Children can get away with such flights of fancy, but reasonable adults have less cause to rely on such implausibility. KeithFromBrooklyn at HuffPo

CTO

We don’t need paranormal or more delusion to explain delusion. Deepak Chopra doesn’t understand what Dawkins has to say.
--------

1. Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries. Those that it can't explain don't exist.

Not only do you have to create God as a catch all answer to mystery, you have to create this straw man to mount an arguement. Dawkins says no such thing and you know it.

Science will never answer every mystery and the one's that it doesn't answer certainly do exist, they're just unanswered. Rationalists tell the truth about this and are content with the state of knowledge. You can't fathom that you may die without knowing everything, so you concoct this cosmic Daddy as a "get out of thinking free" card.

Dawkins says that if you claim God is in heaven and created the universe, you are making a scientific claim about the actual nature of the universe and it ought to be scrutinized as any other claim about the true nature of existence. That means there needs to be more proof than the anecdote that you "feel" it's true, which is the whole basis of your argument. The earth feels flat. It feels like the sun revolves around it. Neither of those things are true and I can say that because there is undeniable intrinsic evidence that they are not true.

Stop your adolescent demonizing of the people who won't subscribe to your wishy washy logic and sentimentalism. We are perfectly comfortable admitting that we don't know things. And the things that we do know through science are amazing enough without myths and magic.~ Cleveyucks at HuffPo

CTO

Dear Deepak

You make this brilliant point, which identifies the core weakness of Dawkins' position:

"The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner. Dawkins makes it an us-versus-them issue. Either you are for science (that is, reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) or you are for religion (that is, unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve)."

I personally believe your position is the correct one.

Beyond that, in this post there is a personal, emotional quality invades the rest of the outlined argument; to further mix and mangle metaphors, that emotionality threatens to both overpower and undermine the validity of your points. Not because your facts are compromised, but because the emotional quality causes others in opposition to react emotionally. If you can disconnect that quality from your arguments, your position will stand out more clearly, and others will be able to see the validity of your points without reacting to the emotional quality of your presentation.

love, Heath

You are misinterpreting what Dawkins says by using your own words as you do usually.The argument is flawed and not convincing at all. It would have been better if you have said that you had the personal experience of God and that is the proof.PERIOD (Delusion)

---

You make an incredibly weak argument for your case when you suggest, as you seem to, that if one can appreciate fine music, a mother's love, and anything the mind can imagine; one must therefore accept the possibility of the existence of God. Assuming such appreciation is universal, how does this validate in any way such an existence?

"Is science the only route to knowledge?" you ask. So your argument is that if science can't disprove the existence of a supernatural entity, that entity must exist because . . . we can imagine it? Sounds like a good argument for the omniscient, omnipotent Flying Teapot and the Spaghetti Monster.

Your claim that you and millions of others have personally witnessed medical cures unexplained by science, triggered by faith alone is proof of God's existence? Millions, really? Any other miracles you want to cite to make your case? apragmatist at HuffPo

"Dawkins makes it an us-versus-them issue. Either you are for science (that is, reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) or you are for religion (that is, unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve)."

Well, science and religious fundmentalism are incompatible. Evidence vs Blind faith. And?

"He goes so far as to tar anyone who believes in God with the same brush as extreme religious fanatics."

I didn't notice this

"many scientists are religious and many of the greatest scientists (including Newton and Einstein) probed deep into the existence of God."

Did he even read the opening chapter of The God Delusion?

"Not to mention the obvious fact that you don't have to go to church, or even belong to a religion, to find God plausible."

And? How does that prove the existence of a God though?

"I know that my mother loved me all her life, as I love my own children."

Emotive

"I feel genius in great works of art."

Again, emotive

"I have seen medical cures that science can't explain, some seemingly triggered by faith."

Oh really? What about amputees hmmm?? Prayer is superstition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0rFZIqo8A

"I know that I am conscious and have a self"

Good for you. And?

"A materialist could conceivably analyze the brain functions of a Mozart or Beethoven down to the last synaptic firing"

Ummmm aren't they dead?

"but that would tell us nothing about why music exists, why it is beautiful, where great symphonies come from, why inspiration uplifts the listener, or in fact any relevant thing about the meaning of music."

Yes, I like Beetoven and Mozart too. And Yo Yo Ma. Every now and then I listen to Britney Spears. And?

Again, emotive.

How does this prove the existence of God?

"The world in general has meaning, deep meaning at times."

Lovely.

"For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed by beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences"

The bible could be considered art. So could rap. But we don't base public policy and law on the words of Rap artists do we hmmm?

"If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself."

Whoooooshhhh

"God stands for the perfection of both, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are fantasies makes no sense."

God is the idea of a being, those other things are not. How can they be compared? Makes no sense whatsoever.

"But the mind goes beyond the five senses"

Oh it does does it? Please do explain.

"In fact, insofar as brain research can locate centers of activity that light up whenever a person feels love or pleasure or sexual arousal, these subjective states leave objective traces behind. That makes them more real, not less. In the same way, the brain lights up when a person feels inspired or close to God; therefore, we may be getting closer to the connection between inner and outer states, not further away."

So? Again, how exactly does this prove the existence of God? Just because someone may believe in God, God must exist? Not convinced. If I believe I own all the land in the world, does that make it so? Why stop there? If I believe that I am master of the Universe does that make it reality?

If so, the Milky Bars are On Me!

"The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner. Dawkins makes it an us-versus-them issue. Either you are for science (that is, reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) or you are for religion (that is, unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve)."

This is a perfect example of reacting emotionally without reason or logic.

Call the person who is making those argument as bigot or a fundamentalist that would be more logical in refuting the point he made.

“…..So? Again, how exactly does this prove the existence of God? Just because someone may believe in God, God must exist? Not convinced. If I believe I own all the land in the world, does that make it so? Why stop there? If I believe that I am master of the Universe does that make it reality?” ~L #31
Well Said. Dawkins is very clear in his arguments.
CTO
---
There's a difference between feeling something or experiencing something or believing something and KNOWING something.

Every one of us has at some point thought we saw something which wasn't there, or believed something which wasn't true. We should all know that feeling and belief are fallible.

So in order to KNOW something, we need some way to tell the difference. We need some way to confirm whether or not something is true in order to KNOW it.

Here is why Dawkins is essentially correct. In order to KNOW something, you need something more to back it up other than really really really believing it. ~IsaacKuoat HuffPo

Well I've not managed to realign the stars to spell my name or anything, so I guess I'm not master of the universe after all. Oh well.

Dr. Chopra your arguments are full of fallacies therefore not convincing. If you say you believe in God, that is enough proof from your side to make your case. Dawkins will gladly say that it is delusion. End of discussion.

CTO

Deepak,
Your first point, especially this: "Eventually science will uncover all mysteries. Those that it can't explain don't exist."

is a straw-man. No legitimate scientist alleges that that science will ever explain all natural phenomena; legitimate scientists simply demand observation, evidence, and theory to prove an claim.

The fallacy of religion and its proponents (yourself included?) is to attempt to duck the obligation to prove your claims in the positive by attempting to force your critics to "prove" them false. This is in complete contradiction to the accepted modes of logical reasoning, and thus, indicates unwillingness to engage in a logical examination of your claims. Thus, through fallacy you force the discussion to come to loggerheads and as such forfeit the argument.

Let's leave such fallacy to the neocons, shall we?~-A at HuffPo

Great..sleeping alone tonight..
again.. woman..
nice.. tnx God.. you're.. marvelous..

Crap, since, I have nothing else to do,
heya kiddies, read this,

From the CwG text Communion with God:

Most people believe in God, they just don't believe in a God who believes in them.

God does believe in them. And God loves them more than most of them know.

The idea that God turned stone silent and stopped talking to the human race a long time ago is false.

The idea that God is angry with the human race and kicked it out of Paradise is false.

The idea that God has set Himself up as judge and jury and will be deciding whether members of the human race go to heaven or go to hell is false.

God loves every human being who ever lived, lives now, or ever will live.

God's desire is for every soul to return to God, and God cannot fail in having this desire fulfilled.

God is separate from nothing, and nothing is separate from God.

There is nothing that God needs, because God is everything there is.

This is the good news. Everything else is an illusion.

The human race has been living within illusions for a long time. This is not because the human race is stupid, but because the human race is very smart. Humans have understood intuitively that illusions have a purpose, and a very important one. Most humans have simply forgotten that they know this.

And they have forgotten that their forgetting is part of what they have forgotten, and therefore part of the illusion.

Now it is time for humans to remember.

You are one of those who will lead the vanguard in this process. There is nothing surprising in this, given what has been going on in your life.

You have come here to remember The Illusions of Humans, so that you may never again be caught up in them, but achieve communion with God once more, in the living of your life through the awareness of Ultimate Reality.

It is perfect that you have done so. And it is, obviously, not happenstance.

You have come here so that you may know experientially that God resides within you, and may have, whenever you wish, a Meeting with the Creator.

The Creator may be experienced and found within you and all around you. But you must look past The Illusions of Humans. You must ignore them.

Here are The Ten Illusions. Get to know them well, so that you will recognize them when you see them.

1. Need Exists
2. Failure Exists
3. Disunity Exists
4. Insufficiency Exists
5. Requirement Exists
6. Judgment Exists
7. Condemnation Exists
8. Conditionality Exists
9. Superiority Exists
10. Ignorance Exists

The first five of these are The Physical Illusions, having to do with life in your physical body. The second five are the Metaphysical Illusions, having to do with non-physical realities.

In this communication, each of these Illusions will be explored in detail. You will see how each has been created, and you will see how each has affected your life. And before this communication is complete, you will also see how you can undo any effect resulting from these Illusions that you wish to undo.

Now the first step in the process of any really open communication is that you must be willing to suspend your disbelief regarding what you are hearing. You will be asked to do that here. Please temporarily give up any previous notions you may have about God and Life. You may return to your previous ideas at any time. It is not a question of abandoning them forever, but of merely setting them aside for the moment to allow for the possibility that there may be something you do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.

For now, simply hear Me when I tell you that in most of the moments of your life, you are living an illusion.

There are ten very big, very impactful illusions which you created during the earliest part of your experience on Earth, and hundreds of smaller ones that you create every day. Because you believe them, you have created a Cultural Story that has allowed you to enter into these Illusions and make them real.

They are not really real, of course. Yet you have created an Alice in Wonderland world in which they seem very real, indeed. So real that, like the Mad Hatter, you will deny that what is False is false, and that what is Real is real.

You have, in fact, been doing this for a very long time.

A Cultural Story is a story which has been handed down from generation to generation, across centuries and millennia. It is the Story that you tell yourself about yourself.

Because your Cultural Story is based on Illusions, it produces Myth, and not an understanding of reality.

The CULTURAL STORY OF HUMANS is that&

1. God has an agenda. (Need Exists)
2. The outcome of life is in doubt. (Failure Exists)
3. You are separate from God. (Disunity Exists)
4. There is not enough. (Insufficiency Exists)
5. There is something you have to do. (Requirement Exists)
6. If you do not do it, you will be punished. (Judgment Exists)
7. The punishment is everlasting damnation. (Condemnation Exists.)
8. Love is, therefore, conditional. (Conditionality Exists)
9. Knowing and meeting the conditions renders you superior. (Superiority Exists)
10. You do not know that these are illusions. (Ignorance Exists.)

This Cultural Story has been so ingrained in you that you now live it fully and completely. This, you tell each other, "is just The Way It Is."

You have been telling each other that now for many centuries. Indeed, for millennia after millennia. For so long, in fact, that Myths have grown up around these Illusions and Stories. Some of the most prominent of these Myths have been reduced to concepts, such as&

· Thy will be done.
· Survival of the fittest.
· To the victor go the spoils.
· You were born in original sin.
· The wages of sin are death.
· Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord.
· Ignorance is bliss. What you don't know won't hurt you.
· God only knows.

&and many others, equally destructive and non-serving.

Based on these Illusions, Stories and Myths -- none of which have anything to do with Ultimate Reality -- here is how many humans have come to think about Life:

"We are born into a hostile world, run by a God who has things He wants us to do and things He wants us not to do, and will punish us with everlasting torture if we don't get the two right.

"Our first experience in life is separation from our mother, the source of our life. This sets the tone and creates the context for our entire reality, which we experience to be one of separation from the Source of All Life.

"We are not only separate from All Life, but from everything else in Life. Everything that exists exists separate from us, and we are separate from everything else that exists. We do not want it this way, but this is the way it is. We wish it were otherwise, and, indeed, we strive for it to be otherwise.

"We seek to experience Oneness again with all things, and especially with each other. We may not know why, exactly, yet it seems almost instinctual. It feels like the natural thing to do. The only problem is, there does not seem to be enough of The Other to satisfy us. No matter what the Other Thing is that we want, we cannot seem to get enough of it.

"We cannot get enough love, we cannot get enough time, we cannot get money, we cannot get enough of whatever it is we think we need in order to be happy and fulfilled. The moment we think that we have enough, we decide that we want more.

"Since there is 'not enough' of whatever it is we think we need to be happy, we must 'do stuff' to get as much as we can get. Things are required of us to get everything, from Gods love to the natural bounty of Life. Simply 'being alive' is not enough. Therefore WE, like all of Life, are not enough.

"Because just 'being' isn't sufficient, there's stuff that we have to do. The ones who do the 'right stuff' get to have the things that they need to be happy. If you don't do the right stuff in the right way, you don't get to 'win.' Thus, the competition begins. There's 'not enough' out there, and so, we have to compete for it.

"We have to compete for everything, including God.

"This competition is tough. This is about our very survival. In this contest, only the fittest survive. Only to the victor go the spoils. If you are a loser, you live a hell on Earth, and after you die, if you are a loser in the competition for God, you experience hell again -- this time forever.

"Death was actually created by God because our forebears made the wrong choices. Adam and Eve had everlasting life in the Garden of Eden, but then, Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she and Adam were driven from the garden by an angry God, who sentenced them, and all their progeny forevermore, to death as The First Punishment. Henceforth, life in the body would be limited, and no longer everlasting, and so would the stuff of Life.

"Yet God will give us back our everlasting life if we never again break His rules. God's love is unconditional, it is only God's rewards which are not. God loves us even as He condemns us to everlasting damnation. It hurts Him more than it hurts us, because He really wants us to return home, but He can't do anything about it if we misbehave. The choice is ours.

"The trick is, therefore, to not misbehave. We need to live a good life. We must strive to do so. In order to do so, we have to know the truth about what God wants and does not want from us. We cannot please God, we cannot avoid offending Him, if we do not know Right from Wrong. So we have to know the Truth about that.

"The Truth is simple to understand and easy to know. All we have to do is listen to the prophets, the teachers, the sages, and the Source and Founder of our religion. If there is more than one religion, and therefore, more than one Source and Founder, then we have to make sure to pick the Right One. Picking the Wrong One could result is us being a Loser.

"When we pick the Right One, we are superior, we are better than our peers, because we have The Truth on our side. This state of being 'Better' allows us to claim most of the other prizes in the contest without actually contesting them. We get to declare ourselves the Winner in the competition before the competition begins. It is out of this awareness that we give ourselves all the advantages, and write the Rules of Life in such a way that certain others find it nearly impossible to win the really big prizes.

"We do not do this out of meanness, but simply in order to ensure that our victory is guaranteed -- as rightly it should be, since it is those of our religion, of our nationality, of our race, of our gender, of our political persuasion, who know The Truth, and therefore deserve to be Winners.

"Because we deserve to win, we have a right to threaten others, to fight with them, and to kill them if necessary, in order to produce this result.

"There may be another way to live, another thing that God has in mind, another, larger Truth, but if there is, we don't know it. In fact, it is not clear whether we are even supposed to know it. It is possible that we are not supposed to even try to know it, much less to truly know and understand God. To try is to be presumptuous, and to declare that you have actually done so is to blaspheme.

"God is the Unknown Knower, the Ummoved Mover, the Great Unseen. Therefore, we cannot know the truth that we are required to know in order to meet the conditions that we are required to meet in order to receive the love that we are required to receive in order to avoid the condemnation that we are seeking to avoid in order to have the everlasting life that we had before any of this started.

"Our ignorance is unfortunate, but should not be problematical. All we need do is take what we think we DO know -- our Cultural Story -- on faith, and proceed accordingly. This we have tried to do, each according to his or her own beliefs, out of which we have produced the life that we are now living, and the reality on Earth that we are creating."

This is how most of the human race has it constructed. You each have your minor variations, but this is, in essence, how you live your lives, justify your choices, and rationalize your outcomes.

Some of you do not accept all of this, yet all of you accept some of it. And you accept these statements as the Operating Reality not because they reflect your innermost wisdom, but because someone else has told you that they are true.

At some level, you have had to make yourself believe them.

This is called Make Believe.

Yet now it is time to move away from Make Believe and toward what is Real. This may not be easy, because Ultimate Reality may differ a great deal from what many people in your world are now agreeing is real. You will literally have to be "in this world, but not of it."

And what would be the purpose of that if your life is going well? Nothing. There would be no purpose. If you are satisfied with your life and with the world as it is, there would no reason for you to seek to shift your Reality, and to stop all this Make Believe.

This message is for those who are not satisfied with their world as it is.

From:
http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/blog_posting.cfm?bid=400

Love, Passion,

Deepak Chopra’s arguments are flawed to the core! They shows a lack of understanding of scientific method.

CTO

There's no way to completely address this post in 350 words, but in a nutshell:

1) Is knowledge shared understanding? Every piece of evidence Dr. Chopak puts forth involves individual understanding ("I know my mother loves me"; arguments of beauty, truth, etc.). The problem is that each of these pieces of evidence can be debated; how you or I determine whether an artwork or musical piece is beautiful is based on different criteria. To me, at least, this is belief rather than knowledge, as there is no established criteria against which either of our judgments can be compared. What makes scientific knowledge is an agreed-upon set of standards; anyone who thinks this applies to religion should read the news more often.

2) Regarding scientists who are religious, let's ask them, "Do you hold your religious beliefs to the same standards as you do your scientific tests?" How many of them would say "Yes" and be prepared to subject those beliefs to the rest of the scientific community? Being a professional scientist and religiously devout does not automatically validate either position.

3) Multiple times in this post, Dr. Chopak has made invalid logical assumptions ("...I have seen medical cures that science can't explain..."), assuming that because they are not explained NOW, there is no valid scientific explanation devoid of religious source. Science is a road, not a destination; Dr. Chopak's statements appear to assume all scientific knowledge has already been discovered, with which few if any of us would agree.

It's impossible to prove a negative beyond any possible doubt. What differentiates scientific evidence from faith is that, as more and more evidence to the contrary piles up, the scientific view is that the item tested is less and less likely to be valid. Faith requires only the continued wilful refusal to face the mounting evidence. If Dr. Chopak can provide such evidence, I'd be willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but, in this post, he has provided nothing of the kind. ~nooneatall at HuffPo

Are you a sinner or are you a winner? Heheh

http://www.robertprice.co.uk/robblog/archive/2005/2/Sinner_Or_Winner_.shtml

Dawkins knows what he is talking about. It would be a great education if Dr. chopra understand the all argumnets of Dawkins with an open-mind before he tries to refute them.
CTO
--
I did not watch or read a transcript of the debate between Chopra and Dawkins, but if this is the kind of forensic skill Chopra brings to a debate, he's bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Love, beauty, art... no one seriously doubts the existence of such emotions or personal experience. As a humanist, I merely assert that these are emphatically human experiences, that have no supernatural source nor require any supernatural confirmation. We can never quantify such experiences, as Heisenberg revealed, but that does not mean such experiences exist anywhere other than in the brain. Alzheimer's, strokes, and any number of other organic brain disorders, I think, prove my point quite clearly.

Chopra's position implies that meaning, consciousness, truth, beauty, etc..., all eminate from and exist because of God. I wholeheartedly reject that. They come from us, the humans who perceive them. If the religious fanatics who are currently trying to bring about armageddon or jihad are successful and the human race exterminates itself, so too will come the end of those words and everything they represent. That is why Dawkins, Harris and others are fighting so hard to shake people out of their delusion and save themselves.

Chopra, it is you who are setting up the straw man by arguing that those who don't believe in god don't accept the concepts of truth, love, meaning, etc... That is simply not a correct description of the atheist position. What is worse, such arguments are used to frighten people into thinking that if they finally admit to themselves that they don't really believe in god, somehow they will become immoral and their lives will become meaningless. As old and worthless as that argument is, people like Chopra never seem to get enough mileage out of it. So-called religious gurus like Chopra need people to believe that there are other routes to knowledge than science. It follows perforce that the guru knows something that the rest of us don't or can't know, so that they can peddle their snake oil to the masses. ~fivespotbluesat HuffPo

Hello Deepak!
It is so evident that (everything) is the infinite consciousness. but then again maybe only to people who have fully reconnected with full awareness such as yourself. Are there scientific facts in a dream? certainly not. A dream is merely the cosmic mind playing. There really arent any limits. It is difficult to argue with an aspect of a dream. and that is what everyone is in truth.

Deepak's arguments are not flawed, perhaps just incomplete. All experiences are ultimately subjective and what is usually referred to as scientific fact is merely consensus. This is what scientific repeatability really means i.e. that some one else following the exact same methodology will get the same results.

If this is the definition of a "scientifically-proven" fact, then it is no different from a guru who says that one can experience God by following his methodology exactly.

"This is only the outline of an argument against science as the only valid route to knowledge. Before going on to Dawkins' other points, let's see what responders have to say." ~Deepak Chopra

Dr Chopra, you argument failed miserably to refute the point. What is the point in refuting other points? If you are open-minded get a copy of God Delusion and read it to know what Dawkins has to say. You will find all your answers to your fallacious arguments. Then you can probably refine your arguments to not look amateurish when you attempt to refute his points.

re: Sanjay #41

How can scientific fact be the same as e.g religious faith?????????

Great Name for a book "The God Delusion".

I would imagine it is a book about God suffering from the delusion that he is a scientist named Richard Dawkins.

Of course when I say "God", I am not talking about the typical image of God created in the minds of men, but the God that imagines the minds of men.

I suppose that scientists that entertain the idea of the existance of some all pervading intelligence / awareness will no doubt manfiest the greatest scientific discoveries.

Science has yet to explain what created energy.

They simply claimed it cannot be created and left it at that.

It seems to me that I can use time to create energy.

I think there are some new revelations coming that will alter scientific minds everywhere.

#44

"Science has yet to explain what created energy."

Yup, just like how the universe came to be is also a mystery. At least we admit it is a mystery and try to investigate further.

Relgious types just Say "God Did It- End Of Story"

Well, who created God?

"I think there are some new revelations coming that will alter scientific minds everywhere."

Are you the Second Coming? Is that it? What do I win?

"Of course when I say "God", I am not talking about the typical image of God created in the minds of men, but the God that imagines the minds of men."

Keep on imagining God who imagines your mind. Delusion.

No wonder delusion is so common among those who don’t understand what Dawkins meant by God Delusion.

Alex

"Great Name for a book "The God Delusion".

Exactly. It offend the Ego of those who are deluded.

Alex - I guess I can understand why it might be hard for some to release themselves of their security blanket or support network. They might not be deluded, just in deep denial of what they actually know is likely to be to be the real truth. That there is no biblical God.

However, I feel they should at least try.

Honestly, intellectually lazy responses like yours are the kind of tripe that turns calm, understanding rationalists like myself into increasingly shrill religion-bashing Dawkins types.

Maybe it's because there can BE no meaningful discourse. Your belief ultimately rests on the idea that there must be at least SOME things in the universe that can never be understood except by your "gut feelings". A rationalist doesn't deny you have gut feelings, but would be quick to point out that the Son of Sam killer had gut feelings too. Do you believe he was possessed by demons? Really heard his dog talking to him? Or, like most people, do you think he was a batshit insane murderer defined by the experiences and chemicals at play in that 3-pound lump of grey matter in his head?

I'm guessing the latter. So what makes your spiritual beliefs any more "intangible" than those? Sorry Deepak, but YOU are the one putting things in a box -- namely, god and faith. Because science and reason invariably come to understand and explain more and more and more of the universe. And that space you rely on, where something CAN'T be explained scientifically grows smaller and smaller.

No matter how it has been phrased, and how it has been shrouded, the idea of God and a spiritual world DEPEND on there being things unexplained, or at the very least, on ignorance. Throughout history, as more is understood, and ignorance receeds, God has become smaller and smaller. You mention recent neurology studies -- and did you see the ones where scientests produced feelings of deja-vu and doppelgangers by stimulating certain neurons?

Deepak, we are just Chemical Machines, as Kurt Vonnegut once put it. The fact that we have evolved to such complexity as to be able to contemplate that fact -- well, that awes me more than any Evangelical revival meeting or south asian shamanic quackery.

PS - einstein was arguably atheistic, and at the least highly agnostic. if you actually read his writings on the subject you wouldn't engage in the standard "but... but.. einstein" dishonesty common to these arguments. ~DaveNYatHuffPo

L#43

I've already explained the logic. What is wrong with it, in your opinion?

Dear Deepak -

Thank you for writing Life After Death. I have been meditating since I was 10 years old, I am now 43. Your book is a complete validation of experiences I have had in my life. I have always felt I am more than this body in this life. I have always trusted my inner truth & intuitions about life. I have read many books on religion & spirituality, I am very fond of Paramahansa Yogananda. Your book puts the quest of life after death in simple terms of understanding and application. It made it very clear to me why I experience the things that I do and how these experiences are my souls' expression within this continuum of past, present & future. Thank you for bringing this information to the masses.

Blessings

L,

If a layman reads the title, “God Delusion”
He thinks, oh is Dawkins implying that, I am deluded if I have thoughts about God? Or may be…is God himself deluded?

Delusion is illusion or not real.Deluded is deceived, duped or tricked etc.So, you are right ‘denial’ may be right word to describe those people who are offended by the Title. None of those who are offended by the title read the content or try to understand the content of the book. They assume that whatever was said is narrow-minded or meaningless as it goes completely against their beliefs.

Alex

>>In his new book Dawkins expresses his position with deep disdain for those who disagree, and his poisonous tone weakens his argument.

Unlike those promoters of religion who bend over backwards to be humble and leave room for dissenting viewpoints (unless they're trying to have you killed for disagreeing with them, that is).

>>
The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner. Dawkins makes it an us-versus-them issue. Either you are for science (that is, reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) or you are for religion (that is, unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve).

But Dawkins didn't define God; religious people did. He is only responding to those definitions. It is true that many religious people today ignore the well-established specifics of their own religions and embrace a "make up whatever you like" religion of their own invention, but they are no more based in reason and far more in wishful thinking.

>>I know that my mother loved me all her life, as I love my own children. I feel genius in great works of art. None of this knowledge is validated by science. I have seen medical cures that science can't explain, some seemingly triggered by faith. The same is true of millions of other people. I know that I am conscious and have a self, even though Dawkins--along with many arch materialists--doesn't believe that consciousness is real

You are begging the question by coming up with a list of things which do not constitute knowledge. You can't "know" the things you claim when you don't even "know" what "love" or "consciousness" is. You are speaking of beliefs, or of things that you wish to believe in. This is a typical supernaturalist's mistake: they don't really understand what knowledge is.~rushmc at HuffPo

>>By Dawkins' reasoning a mother's love is no more real than God as neither can be empirically quantified.

Nonsense. You can create a scale for a mother's love and measure it (how much she is willing to sacrifice for her child, for example). There is no comparable way to objectively measure God.

For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed by beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself.

That's disingenuous. God is (most often) proposed as an objectively real thing entirely separate from humankind. The other things you cite depend upon the existence of a mind that has the subjective experience. ~rushmcatHuffPo

Sanjay "All experiences are ultimately subjective and what is usually referred to as scientific fact is merely consensus. This is what scientific repeatability really means i.e. that some one else following the exact same methodology will get the same results.

If this is the definition of a "scientifically-proven" fact, then it is no different from a guru who says that one can experience God by following his methodology exactly."

are you saying that consensus is the same as scientific fact?????? is your argument well, lots of people believe that God exists, thus he does? Well lots of people thought the world was flat but that didnt make it the truth did it.

Lots of people believed the sun and all other planets revolved around the Earth. They were wrong too.

Please let me illustrate further if you do not understand my point.

So if lots and lots of people told you to jump off a cliff and said, it's ok there's no more gravity, would you just jump, or demand more evidence?

#41“Deepak's arguments are not flawed, perhaps just incomplete.”

Dawkins’s arguments are not flawed. In attempting to refute Dawkins’s point Deepak Chopra made some bad assumptions and made arguments with fallacies as is elaborated in many comments.

Dawkins may or may not be right. Deepak Chopra is always right. Both of them cannot be right at the same time. So Dawkins is wrong. End of story. This is a better argument.

“ All experiences are ultimately subjective and what is usually referred to as scientific fact is merely consensus. This is what scientific repeatability really means i.e. that some one else following the exact same methodology will get the same results.

If this is the definition of a "scientifically-proven" fact, then it is no different from a guru who says that one can experience God by following his methodology exactly.”

Dawkins says that the God you experience by following the method advised by your Guru is a Delusion or an illusion. It is in your head. All Human brains are similar therefore any person who follows this method may have a similar experience of whatever Godly experience that the Guru promises with his method.

L,

My argument has nothing to do with beliefs.

I'm refering to the scientific method which says quite clearly "if you follow my methodolgy exactly, you will get exactly the results I did."

Therefore, if two or more people arrive at the same result using the same method merely means that consensus has been reached, not some kind of "absolute truth".

ok so a consensus has been reached. and?

the consensus was the Earth was flat, no?

the truth is what we seek, no? rather than blind faith based on a loose consensus?

anyhoo i gotta go but its been fun!

take care of yourselves and each other :o)

All the examples Depak gives of subjective "divine" qualities are natural phenomenon which can be experienced and observed. None of his examples requires belief in any supernatural superstition (heaven/hell), magic (miracles) or fortune-telling (prophesy). I get the sense Depak wants to equate all these naturally occurring subjective experiences with his concept of God. My problem with this is the concept of God is so overloaded in contradictory "meaning" that it has lost its ability to communicate anything meaningful.

I would point you to the Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion study conducted by Gallup that quantifies the disagreement even among American Christians about what the word "God" really means. Highlights of Baylor's analysis finds four different types of God; The Authoritarian God (31.4% of Americans overall) is angry at humanity's sins and engaged in every creature's life and world affairs, The Benevolent God (23% overall) sees primarily a forgiving God, more like the father who embraces his repentant prodigal son in the Bible, The Critical God (16% overall) has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or to comfort, and The Distant God (24.4% overall) see a cosmic force that launched the world, then left it spinning on its own. In this climate, communicating about "God" effectively is next to impossible.

The base premise of monotheistic religions teach that human beings are fundamentally flawed (original sin) and in need of salvation (which comes in various forms). The antithesis of this argument (the antichrist) is that there is NOTHING wrong with humans as there is nothing wrong with birds and plants and rocks and stars. Eliminate the concept "God" and we'll cease to defend things as "Right" or "Wrong". Instead we will start conversing about what works and doesn't work in this natural (scientific) world.

To me, this seems more peaceful. If you look macroscopically at the effect belief in a supernatural God has wrought upon this world, you will begin to understand why rational thinking human beings are standing up in protest. ~ Squirtapotamus at HuffPo

What a weak argument Chopra makes against Mr. Dawkins. At least Dawkins seeks truth (you
know the kind that can be verified through observable phenomena and empirical evidence)
and not faith (you know the belief in con- veniently unverified feelings).

But I guess it's easier to believe in an extra-universal supernatural entity who created this incomprehensively vast and enduring universe filled with uncountable billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars for the sole purpose of placing sentient beings on a remote rock
orbiting a solitary star in the outer reaches of a single galaxy just to worship him (her, it, whatever).

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Excuuuuse me if I don't buy it.

By: uglybagofmostlywater at HuffPo

Deepak: Marvelous "outline" for a marvelous opportunity to not so much "sew the fabric" of established rationality to the "cloth of spirituality" (and/or outer religious teachings); but rather, reveal what has, IS, and always be one unified fabric of life: even, and especially, what the cutting-edge sciences will increasinly reveal to have been true all along, in spite of our dualistic material mind's "split perception," both of actuality, and the Greater Reality......

......"For man could never be free until the sciences of Egypt's Osiris were married with the splendor-in-lowliness of China's Tao, until the philosophy of Aristotle was wedded to the beliefs and doctrines of Plato," (pg. 369 of "The Nine Faces of Christ).......

.....and that is what our future quantum sciences will continue to reveal--that the Yin and the Yang have always been "wedded," and always will be, as we did not create these varied and multi-dimensional forces that are "in fact" ONE FORCE--Super-intelligent beyond our own making--"E Pluribus Unum"--One from many; and from many, One!

It would seem that "A Course in Miracles" main question to the student--"Would you rather be happy and healthy; or would you rather be right?" is the main issue for even the most brilliant of singularly left-brained stances such as, sadly to say, Richard Dawkins has taken upon himself--and when we have that obsessive need to be right, it bends the lens-of-perception to accomodate "being right" at any cost, most especially the greater Truth, Itself--although in no way does this human desire alter the Truth--for that is the beauty of the maginificence indifference of the deepest truths--they in fact do not change to meet the needs of even the great maleability of the physical (quantum and macro) Universe to our "Observer Effects," and at all levels to the Void, so to speak.

I greatly look forward to the discourse that unfolds from the outline you set forth here.

A young college student that Patzi and I were visiting with today, who's given us credit for a "persuasive speech" we helped him develop for presentation tomorrow (with the point being to always show the validity and merits that one's opposition is claiming as certain truth--as you did with Richard Dawkins!)--well anyway, this you man has "fallen in love," and so I was speaking of the "chemistry of love," and he brought up a fabulous National Geographic article that supported the notion that although we could synthesize the chemical components of Love's influence on our neurobiology, science could not mimic the motivating and primal forces that are the cause of this chemistry--ie, the article was alluding to the unseen influences of Soul-and-Mind being forces that cannot be replicated by man's linear ingenuity--for they are ever-greater, and yet encompassing and inclusive of the linear/physical world effect of same.

Thank You for continuing with your current themes, and the very real understanding that is indeed being supported by some of the greatest scientific minds of the last 500 years.

Einstein's "true genius" is the use and balance of both "sides of the brain," intuition and logical reasoning (as it is known--since intuition is often called the "higher logic"); and Einstein's comment in his latter life: "I won't to know the thoughts of God; all the rest are details!"

I believe it is that most-beloved of Self-Help "Messengers," Dr. Wayne Dyer (your good friend?!), who said: "Twenty years ago, if you ask a scientist, 'Do you believe in God?,' he/she'd say 'No, of course not, I'm a scientist!'; Now, you ask a scientist, 'Do you believe in God,' the scientist says 'Of course, I'm a scientist!'"

I think also of those who quote, or imply, that Carl Sagan, a pioneering Cosmologist, and how he was dead-set against the possibilities of a supremely intelligent force being behind the mask of all the visible physical universe--in the movie dedicated to this great soul's lifework, "Contact," the character of Palmer Joss--the "religious/spiritual viewpoint" in the movie (Matthew McConaghey), who was continuing his ongoing debate with the scientifically-minded view of Dr. Eleanor Arroway (the atheist astrophysicist) who was concurrently reciprocating the love Palmer had for her, and he asked her: "Do you love your father (now deceased)?.....and she responded, 'Of Course!'--and Palmer said, 'Prove It!'".......

.......and she could not prove it, but knew her love for her father was "True!" Much Love--Dave

I'm surprised and saddened by the simplistic reduction, and shallow, condescending characterization you've given Dawkins' premise -- and in the desperately clinging and passive-aggressive tone of your comments, you prove many of Dawkins' points.

The God Delusion never suggests that life has no meaning, nor that scientific inquiry limits appreciation of life experience to the five senses, and to suggest otherwise is intentional misrepresentation on your part.

Please don't be frightened that the emerging interest in Dawkins will somehow hurt the sales of feel-good pseudo-spiritual books. Hopefully in further posts you will consider commenting on what Dawkins proposes and not the straw men you've constructed here... and be confident that you'll still have a place in the paperback racks to supply light, reassuring reading for the spiritually unsteady. ~ hyperfireat huffPo

Mr. Chopra Writes: "By Dawkins' reasoning a mother's love is no more real than God as neither can be empirically quantified."

Mr. Chopra is telling untruths again. Actually, Dawkins is comfortably aware that a mother's love, at the physical level, results from changes in her brain and body which can be seen and measured - her brain interprets those changes as love for her child, and there is nothing more real or more miraculous in the world.

Just because emotions are the product of neurons and nerves and flesh does not negate their power and importance to humans, or their provable existance.

Unfortunately for Mr. Chopra, the perception of God is also personal, and is also the product of neurons and nerves and flesh. Those feelings can be induced reliably in the lab with magnetic fields aimed at specific parts of the brain, they have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be real.

The realness of Mr. Chopra's feelings, though, does not prove that there is an external God.

Does a man who knows that a tin-foil hat will keep others from reading his mind prove by his belief that other people really can read his mind?

Belief is the uncertain product of our physiology interacting with our environment - wonderful and personally intense, but a bad guage of how the world really works. ~NYCBear

"For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed by beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. God stands for the perfection of both, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are fantasies makes no sense."

This is the other hack argument, and one that relies on two fallacies: 1.) the meaning of words, and 2.) the "platonic ideal/god is perfection" argument. (never mind your sloppy act of throwing all these different terms together). What is "truth?" What is "beauty?" Deepak, we can all define those things entirely differently because they're WORDS. And furthermore, we all are likely to have our own standards and metrics of judging these things -- implying we all have a different idea of "perfection" (a term of questionable usage itself). So does that mean that there's a ton of different Gods? Are some gods more perfect than others? What about imperfect gods like those of Greek myth, who could even be bested by the wiles of men?

Deepak, notions like "social responsibility", loyalty, ethics, appreciation of beauty -- we can find even rudimentary examples of these in lower primates! Why? Because they serve an evolutionary purpose! You can't have a fucntioning society without some standard of how we are supposed to interact with each other!

I'm sorry, Deepak -- I've had some wonderful, profound arguments and discussions with friends of mine who have faith and spirituality. But they have been nuanced and understanding in their approact to facts and reasoned argument. You, on the other hand, come off as a typical southern california-type fluff brain with some vague ideas, a great sense of self-promotion, and a total lack of rigor in thought.

Come back when you're responding to Dawkins's arguments, not the Amazon.com summary. ~DaveNY at HuffPo

You blew it.

" I have seen medical cures that science can't explain, some seemingly triggered by faith."

See..this is the kind of thinking that makes the non-religious rolls their eyes. Since you just can't explain something, that is proof, or at least evidence, of God.

Thus, if a person can't figure out how a car engine works, that's proof of God.

When will you religious folks learn to argue effectively? If there is a God, he surely gave you the power of logic. Use some. ~chemsmith at HuffPo

Mr. Chopra wastes no time in misrepresenting Dawkins. Dawkins would never say that science is the only way to gain knowledge (but it's one of the most successful ways), nor would he say that science will uncover all mysteries. He would say that those mysteries that are unexplained, are simply unexplained, not that they don't exist. Then Chopra says Dawkins is unfair!

It's Chopra who can't accept mystery. When he comes across one, he has to invent a "god" or a "force" or an "energy" to make himself feel better. ~teapot at HuffPo

Deepak,

Thanks for bringing support!
We been working to hold the fort.

Over the bridge between Eden and Hell,
hangs a wise-cracked Liberty Bell.

The risk...to cross is profound,
The Kingdom of God is round.

Peace and goodwill t'wards all,
Union...free this Fall!

Join up!
(See Zero)

"Why would Dawkins ever stoop to debating you? It's a waste of his time."

As a great spiritalist once said:"Ee-nee-mee-chili-beanie the spirits are about to speak!"

C'mon, Deepak, grow up. There ain't no fairies at the bottom of your garden and there ain't on god. It's past time humanity relied on an invisible friend to get itself into and out of problems of its own device.

Religion, especially the Abrahamic trio of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has been the direct cause of untold, countless horrors down through the ages: The Crusades, the original Jihad, the Inquisition, to name but a handful of crimes against humanity committed in the name of God. Imagine, if Adolph Hitler had not been inculcated by his Austrian Catholic teachers and priests that Europe's Jews were the descendants of "Christ killers" there may never have been a Holocaust.

Religion and god is a dangerous weapon in the hands of charletons, montebanks and demagogues. And this old world is full to the brim with these types, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Osama bin Laden to name but a few. Your soft religiosity, Deepak the enabler, is merely a greatway to hardcore fanatism. ~ stupidforum at HuffPo

If Deepak understands life as well as he understands Dawkin's argument, he has no business preaching to anyone. ~underdog at HuffPo

Dear Deepak, I have read and watched your ideas and enjoyed them,but I think there is no such thing as the "supernatural".

My own experience shows me that awareness is generated in the brain through interaction of chemicals,molecules,cells etc.

I do agree however that many experiences are so moving ,in terms of pleasure or horror,that it is helpful to use mystical and religious words and thoughts to relate to them.

I am inclined to think that humans will develop brains which will be much more aware of minutiae and many experiences which seem magical today will become explainable in scientific terms.

This has happened before in humankinds history. Imagine how out of it the average human from 900 BC would be today.

Though religion is very important to many people , the reason many object to it is exemplified in the behavior of TV preachers and evangelical christians,with their insistence that everyone and all decisions and public policy be made with this anti-scientific set of beliefs.

Religion has brought individuals comfort and clarity but has made groups of people have violent and hateful attitudes to other people as well.
That is one key :religion is subjective and personal and it works best in that way in my view.
Science has brought us our modern civilization in all its wonder and terror and while not perfect it is the best way so far to determine what the objective truth is.

It is unscientific to become dogmatic about anything and many scientists have become this way over the years.Science depends on an open mind.
This debate will probably never end....to each his own and with peace.

~drblack at HuffPo

"As usual, Dr. Chopra defies all logic in his post. Why even bother to to make a rational argument for God? You either have faith or you don't. Rationally, there is no basis for belief, so why bother. Both Dr. Chopra and his minions begin with an a priori assumption that god exists and then bend every iota of evidence towards supporting this assumption. Dawkins merely asks for the evidence first. And there clearly is none and never will be. So believe if you wish, but no rational person can truly entertain these arguments and it deeply saddens me that so many huff-posters are as deluded as the regulars at redstate.org. Humankind is doomed until the day when we shed all this garbage for the light of rationality. It is not lack of spirituality that plagues the world, it is so clearly the belief in the supernatural, yet so many of you cling to fear and irrationality in the vain hope that you will have eternal life or reincarnation or whatever drives you to believe. Does a good person need a carrot to behave and do right in the world. No, only a child does. Grow up."
By: tluger
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-1_b_34200.html?p=3#comments

>>One thing about the materialistic perspective is that it reduces everything to zero. No value.

No, it denies *absolute* value. It says nothing about any other kind of value, including human-ascribed meaning.

>>If there is no self who survives the destruction of the body, then all of life is absolutely meaningless.

For such a preposterous claim, this sure is a popular one--among supernaturalists. Life is the opposite of death, a completely discrete and separate category. Therefore death cannot affect life (except in an evolutionary sense). What *can* affect life is the *expectation of death*, but that does not necessarily lead to "absolute meaninglessness." Or to hopelessness, for that matter.~rushmc at HuffPo

>>Ever wonder why the natural world world is artistically constructed? Why flowers or birds or butterflies, or cats or horses or trees, or fruit or fish or pretty much all of nature is artistically brilliant?

This is surely the most misguided, foolish comment yet.

The answer is so simple: it ISN'T, and they AREN'T. The reason they appear so to you is that you have evolved to PERCEIVE them so. Big difference. (And there is variability even among humans in such perceptions--some things which cause you to wax poetic leave others quite cold.)
~ rushmc at HuffPo

God sees science

In 1982, a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris ,
a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn
out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century.
You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you
are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have
never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his
discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances
subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously
communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating
them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles
apart.

Somehow, each particle always seems to know what the other is doing.
The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held
tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light.
Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to
breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some
physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away
Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more
radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes
Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that
despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a
gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first
understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three-
dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in
the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off
the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference
pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on
film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light
and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by
another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object
appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable
characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half
and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to
contain the entire image of the rose.

Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film
will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the
original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram
contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an
entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most
of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the
best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an
atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend
themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something
constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is
made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's
discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to
remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance
separating them is not because they are sending some sort of
mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an
illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such
particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of
the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the
following illustration.

Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are
unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and
what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at
the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.

As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the
fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because
the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be
slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you
will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship
between them.

When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but
corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces
toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the
situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be
instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly
not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic
particles in Aspect's experiment.

According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between
subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level
of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our
own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects
such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we
are seeing only a portion of their reality.

Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and
more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and
indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything
in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is
itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess
other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of
subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of
reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.

The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the
subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart
that beats and every star that shimmers in the sky.

Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may
seek to categorize, pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of
the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all
of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be
viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down
in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else,
time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the
TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this
deeper order.

At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the
past, present and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that
given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into
the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the
long-forgotten past.

What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question.
Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the
matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very
least, it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be
-- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from
snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be
seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might
lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have
no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it,
perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond
which lies "an infinity of further development".

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the
universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain
research, Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become
persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and
where memories are stored in the brain. For decades, numerous studies
have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location,
memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl
Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed
he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks
it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one
was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious
"whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s, Pribram encountered the concept of holography and
realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been
looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons,
or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that
crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser
light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film
containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the
brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many
memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human
brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10
billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or
roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the
Encyclopedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other
capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information
storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a
piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different
images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic
centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need
from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if
the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend
asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra",
you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and
cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead,
associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to
Africa " all pop into your head instantly.

Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking
process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross-
correlated with every other piece of information--another feature
intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is
infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps
nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that
becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the
brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche
of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound
frequencies and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.
Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does
best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating
device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies
into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a
lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the
frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our
perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses
holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory,
in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinean-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the
holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by
the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving
their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli
discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.

Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a
recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an
almost uncanny realism.

Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard"
reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received
a good deal of experimental support.

It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much
broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.

Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are
sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part
dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even
the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies.
Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of
consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into
conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of
the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory.
For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and
what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if
the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies
out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory
perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East
have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and
although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical
world, this too is an illusion.

We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of
frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into
physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the
superhologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and
Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and
although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has
galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe
it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at
thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries
that have never before been explainable by science and even establish
the paranormal as a part of nature.

Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many
para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms
of the holographic paradigm.

In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible
portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely
interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the
holographic level.

It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel
from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far
distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in
psychology. In particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm
offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena
experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.

For further information on the nature of holographic reality, see:
http://www.gaianxaos.com/holographic_reality_of_being.htm

I don't think you are being fair here.

I have read and watched Dawkins and I don't think he has ever said that belief in God is stupid. He just says God can't be proven. There is a difference. Fact is fact...God can't be proven. It is not a poisonous pen to say that...it is science.

Why can't God and science co-exist in a world?
Christians that believe that God created science and the world to now claim it can't co-exist is beyond me.

While I read your post to the end I can't help think that you didn't think. The same is true that wrote these words:

"i after e, except after c"

That rule works for every spelling except science.

~Fawlty at HuffPo

*****
The most perfidious way of damaging a cause is to defend it [] with faulty arguments.
- Nietzsche, The Gay Science,

"The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner."

No one has pointed out that Deepak Chopra presumes precisely what's at stake. Send this post to any philosophy professor as a defense of God and you'll be lucky to end up with an F.

If I were a believer, I'd be embarrassed by Chopra's putative counterarguments.

****
By: Arsenal at HuffPo

****
Dawkins' poisonous tone in no way negates his argument. Just because you think the argument's unfair doesn't mean that it isn't correct.

I just don't see the media as following Dawkins' lead. If anything, they're giving too much credence to the supernatural and anti-scientific ideas like Intelligent Design.

Where does Dawkins deny the existence of consciousness or Love? In any case, neither of these things proves the existence of a higher power.

Most arguments in favor of the existence of God can be boiled down to wishful thinking. Just because you want there to be a God doesn't mean there is one.
****
By: Quaoar at HuffPo

You said,

"Sadly, the media often follow his lead, erasing the truth, which is that many scientists are religious and many of the greatest scientists (including Newton and Einstein) probed deep into the existence of God."

Be careful not to tar Einstein as a theist. In "The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins quotes Albert Einstein as saying,

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 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."

~ Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

~Cineaste at HuffPo

****
Deepak:

Unfortunately, you have misrepresented Dawkins as being disdainful of and poisonous in his description of people who believe in a God. He does no such thing in his book.He is critical of the nefarious ways in which people use religion to harm non-believers.As he said in a recent answer to a student question in North Carolina. "I don't see why you feel insulted by what I have said (with respect to your beliefs), I have not intended to insult you, I have insulted God. You seem to miss Dawkin's major point concerning the error in attributing what cannot be explained by science to God, angels, miracles, prayer, etc. He acknowledges the limits of 21st century science to explain all the mysteries of our existence and of our universe, but he takes no truck in evoking religious explanations to explain those gaps in our knowledge. Your points to refute Dawkins by describing Mother's love, the soul and afterlife are nonsense.

****
By: Mikal at HuffPo

Mr Chopra,

You are putting your own words into Dawkins' mouth which are, at worst, gross over-exaggerations, and at best, irrelevant to the point. You claim that he thinks science is some sort of panacaea, when in reality all he's doing is pointing out the unreliability of religious faith. Science doesn't need to be considered as the exclusive means of knowledge in order to find the existence of a deity highly improbable. I don't think he actually made this claim as part of his argument.

Actually, I'm quite certain that Dawkins would AGREE with you that that entire statement of yours is false, except maybe the second sentence of it "Nothing about God is needed to explain the world."

Since so many people have pointed this out, please in your next post provide citations that back this up. ~godma at HuffPo

*****

I think this is a wonderful lesson for YOU, Mr. Chopra.

Dawkins is indeed very dismissive of all religious types. He looks down on such people. It reminds me of how you look down on those Christian-right people who I often see appearing with you on shows like Larry King. The way you converse them, with disgust and sarcasm and arrogance, comes across very clearly. Not that I side with these peoples' beliefs. But, I would rather make my arguments with them based on reason while being respectful, rather than with disdain.

Now YOU know how it feels.

*****

jimmyp at HuffPo

***

If you had actually read the book, you would know that Einstein was NOT religious. And I would really enjoy hearing how this debate can be framed as anything but an "us-versus-them" issue. In your own words, "reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future" and in fact the quest for truth through evidence and scientific rationalism IS mutually exclusive with religion - "unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve". It is logically impossible to truly believe that one should question everything while simultaneously refusing to question faith-based assertions.

Science is the only route to knowledge. Whether you believe it or not, you are using an internal version of the scientific method when you say you "know your mother loved you" or that you "feel genius in art". What you are actually doing is leveraging a lifetime of observation and evidence to make this decision. If you want to try to assert that there are other routes to knowledge besides science, you're going to have to do a whole lot better than this.

I won't bother with the tired argument that a map of a radio laying Beethoven would not "be" Beethoven. Actually, it would be. Go look up why water molecules aren't "wet" and then come back and try again please.

Again, if you had read the book, you would have a good understanding of where truth, altruism, etc. come from. It can be explained through a combination of evolution and social contracts with no need to invoke a supreme being like Zeus. Truth and beauty are man-made concepts.

In my mind, the final nail in this debate is the fact that a scientist is perfectly able to admit that he could be wrong. A person of faith not only will not but CAN NOT say the same. The religious person is not "debating". They are talking, they are giving the illusion that they are entertaining both sides of the issue, but in fact they are not.

***
By: brian428 at HuffPo

YO CTO,

You are spammin' us, dude.

Chill..., dude, take it easy. u know no one will want to read u if u keep it up. Whoa!

Another bizarre argument by a really smart guy. It really is hard to lose old habits, it is just so comforting to hang onto the warm fuzzies that a belief in devinity can bring.
Funny thing is, no matter how smart you are, you are no closer to the truth than anyone else. The mind of god is the mind of man. The truth is known by everyone and unknown. The purpose of life is to be alive. The purpose of the universe is to understand the purpose of the universe. These rantings may seem contradictory, but the universe is self-contradictory. So there.

Dear Deepak,

what you write is true and beautiful, the loving intention behind it is obvious, and I bet that they wouldn't find any of it in your physical brain, no matter how hard they tried :D:D Where do the love, the beauty and the truth in your post come from?

I think the confusion in many people's minds comes from the fact that they still see "God" in the way he was painted on the roof of the Sixtine Chapel... wearing a beard and living up there in the sky :) If they could realize that "God" is the word we use for the source of love, beauty, truth, inspiration, courage, imagination, creativity, genius and all those many miraculous realities in our lives that are beyond the need for scientific proof, maybe they could start to see that there is no need for conflict.

And if they think that the source of it all is a chemical process in the human brain... then they will have to ask themselves... what causes the chemical process? Who/what created the perfection of that chemical process,in perfectly coordinated harmony with all other processes that exist? Who/what orchestrates it all, even their skepticism? What is beyond the beyond?

The thorough and minutious search of our scientists will have to go as far as possible, and will one day arrive beyond the beyond. There is no conflict and no need to fight. Science and mysticism have the same goal and are saying the same things, but in different languages. If they can take a moment to learn each other's language without prejudice (as you have done, Deepak), they will see that there is no "us vs. them".

One of God's most amazing capabilties is the ability to debate with himself about his own existance as we see here.

Simply fascinating.

I totally agree however don't leave out SHE for that is part of WE
THE DEBATE GOES ON!

Quest: What is Matter?
Answer: What you don't understand is matter

Quest: Science understands matter
Answer: SCIENCE MERELY PUSHES BACK THE FRONTIERS OF OUR IGNORANCE

Yes, and we is me I just flipped the first character the one becoming the many in my never-ending story.

A state has no beginning or end, it is simply either observed or not. It is the act of observation that creates beginnings and endings.

It is the collection of stateful observations drawn from an infinite number of possible states of the universe that create a history which could be construed as an identity.

As you may have imagined when having the choice of observing myself taking the blue pill or the red pill, I observed myself taking both at the same time.

Well no one had ever done that, it was unexpected, nobody was sure what the effects would be, it sure messed up the system, some thought to think it created a non duality.

Who amongst you would real eyes that you had written these very words without thought, but have now thought to read them.

Was it you that swallowed the blue and red pill?

Is it really a story about your Self?

Richard, I thought your comment on a recent related blog here concerning the energy in waves was quite profound.
There would not seem to be any physical evidence that science actually exists outside the human mind, perhaps it is a delusion also.
I have been trying to devise a scientific method by which I could prove to myself that I exist, without much satisfactory progress.
With the birth of knowledge, the great pretense begins, no?

CTO: That rule, "i" before "e", except after "c"...

see Keith...receive grammar lessons.

.

"The Holographic Universe", by Michael Talbot, 1991
The info above is contained in this book, along
with many illustrations from History of observed para-normal activity. Observed by "the many".

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

Isn't the manifest world illogical, where is the logic that some-ting can manifest from no-thing?

I was reading a story about a young man with severe brain damage. His therapists were trying to teach him how to throw a ball underhanded and the person watching was amazed at how difficult it was to teach, this, apparently, simple act, for all of us, who are not brain damaged. It got me thinking about, how, if we had to think about learning how to walk, when we were a year old, no one would be walking? It would just be too difficult to figure out. Now, I know the brain knew how to communicate to the muscles, all the right movements, but what caused the actual movement? Desire, or will, or what? Where is desire or will? can you prove it exists? can you see it? can you touch it? Is it red or blue, hard or soft, republican or democrat?

Just playing.

peace ruth

aurora "And if they think that the source of it all is a chemical process in the human brain... then they will have to ask themselves... what causes the chemical process?"

fear, love etc, all had an evolutionary purpose. fear - survival, love - reproduction.

when people say "God" they do indeed mean the biblical God. that is the kind of God that Dawkins is saying does not exist.

"Who/what created the perfection of that chemical process,in perfectly coordinated harmony with all other processes that exist? Who/what orchestrates it all, even their skepticism? "

why is it assumed that it was created and orchestrated by someone/something? if you are asking about the origins of life itself - scientests are working on it unlike the religious who just say "erm, God did it!"

"What is beyond the beyond?"

well space is vast, more vast than we can even imagine. think of your bedroom as the milky way, and the whole world as what could be all the universes in existence. that will maybe give you some idea.

squid "With the birth of knowledge, the great pretense begins, no?"

no - knowledge can lead to understanding and action to improve our world. of course this all depends on

ruth "where is the logic that some-ting can manifest from no-thing?"

indeed, if God created the world, who created God?

"I was reading a story about a young man with severe brain damage. His therapists were trying to teach him how to throw a ball underhanded and the person watching was amazed at how difficult it was to teach, this, apparently, simple act, for all of us, who are not brain damaged. It got me thinking about, how, if we had to think about learning how to walk, when we were a year old, no one would be walking? It would just be too difficult to figure out. Now, I know the brain knew how to communicate to the muscles, all the right movements, but what caused the actual movement? Desire, or will, or what? Where is desire or will? can you prove it exists? can you see it? can you touch it?"

how does this all relate to the existence or non-existence of God, ruth?

i don't wish to put words into your mouth so i will let you explain.

actually ruth, sorry i dont have time so i will try and figure out what you were trying to say.

we have feelings, sure. that is emotive. it does in no way prove that there is a biblical God. we have a brain that can process information and dependent on our programming, produce the appropriate response. e.g. we see a big rhino running towards us, fight or flight? just because we have feelings, this does not mean God exists. we have evolved to become very complex creatures and our brain ensures our survival and reproduction.

i think some people are equating personal feelings and personal beliefs with the idea of a soul, and thus an afterlife. the soul is an idea, often used as a term for a persons general character. and that is all it is. it does not exist on it's own persay. sorry to shatter the illusion!

Dr. Chopra:

Very well written! However, my contention is that God is a "Placeholder" for our ignorance of the "Truth"!

We dont know or can contemplate the Origin of it all - so we created an Algebraic Constant out of the blue that helps us "solve the equation" of origin and birth. Every one has a different value for this constant because everyone perceives the equation from her/his perspective by installing himself/herself as the subject.

There needn't be any God to be there to prove consciousness.. because God may not exist as a Karta (or doer).

When a wave jumps up in an Ocean, it may think that it is separate from the Ocean and that Ocean has "caused" it - or if the wave were a Dawkinsian wave that it is self created - but the truth is that it was neither created nor destroyed... it was always a part of the Ocean.. it just seemed so!

One Consciousness ASSUMES that wave is part of the ocean.. however an assertion of a God assumes that it is NOT! So, one who believes in One Consciousness CANNOT logically believe in a God at all!!

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Dear L,

thank you for your comment.

So in your view, what causes the “chemical process” of fear, love, etc, is evolution. But please tell me... how, in your view, does this “evolution” decide between creating chemicals for fear, love and all the rest of human responses? Let’s say that a dog runs towards two people. Why does evolution decide to create fear in one person and joy in the other? And how does it do it?

You wrote: “when people say "God" they do indeed mean the biblical God. that is the kind of God that Dawkins is saying does not exist.”

I haven’t read Dawkins’ book, but if that is the God that he is debating... well... is there anyone here who is still talking about the biblical God??? Hey, in that case I congratulate Mr. Dawkins for his personal realization that there is no God sitting up there in the sky :)

“if you are asking about the origins of life itself - scientests are working on it unlike the religious who just say "erm, God did it!"

Yes, I am asking about the origins of life. Where does it all come from? I know that true scientists are working on it, and I think that every true seeker is working on it, too. I agree with you that an empty religious belief which hides behind “God” is worth nothing. But so is a so called scientific belief that hides behind “no God”. A true scientist and a true spiritual seeker are both doing the real work, and will find real answers.

I asked what is beyond the beyond and you answered “space is more vast than you can imagine”. Thank you, it is also my conclusion. Space is as infinite as the mind itself... and any point in space can be observed. From where?

Aurora

Thanks for your response

"So in your view, what causes the “chemical process” of fear, love, etc, is evolution."

no!!! the brain does!!!

"Let’s say that a dog runs towards two people. Why does evolution decide to create fear in one person and joy in the other? And how does it do it?"

the brain has recalled experiences which lead the person to fear or love dog or dogs. think of the brain as a highly highly complex computer controlling the body. without a brain, we would be dead heheh

"I haven’t read Dawkins’ book,"

i'd recommend it highly :o)

"But so is a so called scientific belief that hides behind “no God”."

we do not generally discount the idea of a biblical God entirely, if scientific evidence were forthcoming we would probably change our minds! the bibical God is as likely as say Thor or any other number of Gods.

"and any point in space can be observed. From where?"

umm i don't quite understand your question! do you mean humans can observe space via satellite images? anyhoo - sorry no more time to answer q's! but answers to most questions are already in the thread. if not i'm sure sme else will kindly oblige and answer!

Desh - you may wish to read the whole article and thread.

Cheers

Hi all,

Interesting conversations here. I think one of the main problems we have with "God", is that the word itself tends to mean many different things to many different people. The main argument that many people here have is in opposition to the "God" defined as a person...i.e. a bearded guy on a throne that judges right and wrong etc. If that is the definition of GOd than I too have a problem with it and would argue against it (as I think Deepak might as well).

However, if you define God as Consciousnes that is all encompassing, that includes all of us and everything; if God is not seperate from us, then I would argue for the existence of God.

Skeptisch posted the quote from Einstein denying his belief in a "personal god". Again, Einstein went out of his way to use the term "personal god" as in a seperate entity with a personality and human like traits.

When I was a young teen we had a good family friend (Elmer Pratorius) that was a physicist (and later a pastor) that had met Einstein and in fact discussed the idea of a diety with him. What Einstein said to him was interesting: Einstein said that he had always been an atheist and believed that the Universe and all of its wonders simply existed. That is until he investigated the way or the process by which he reached his own theories and conclusions. According to Einstein, he would sit down and ask himself the question: "If I created the Universe, how would "X" work?" Once he realized that his own process of thought required that he view the Universe as a creator, he came to the conclusion that there must be an organizing force, for if there were not, none of his theories could possibly be true. So it would be fair to say that Einstein's view of God was simply that "God" was the organizing force in the Universe. Chaos SHOULD be the natural order (or disorder).

The problem that we all have is that to each of us "God" means different things. The word is problematic because we all attach a variety of meanings to it: To some it means an angry father figure, to some a loving woman, to some a whole pantheon, and to some consciousness. This is probably going to go on forever as to essentially label something is to quantify it, and once you quantify it, it becomes a space/time event and the organizing force is not a space/time event. However, our minds are finite so in order for us to discuss anything we must label it and once that happens we again go back to this argument. The problem is in the label and the attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.

Peace,
Scott.

FYI Einstein did NOT believe in God!!!! Why imply that he did? He was most like what could be described as a pantheist.

L -

If you read my post what I wrote about Einstein I basically said that he was a Pantheist. And your response to my post has made my point concerning the cloudiness that surrounds the word "God".

Scott.

Hello All,

Just have a minute..L asks,"ruth "where is the logic that some-ting can manifest from no-thing?"

Exactly, L, where is the logic..no-where.

Scott writes,"This is probably going to go on forever as to essentially label something is to quantify it, and once you quantify it, it becomes a space/time event and the organizing force is not a space/time event. However, our minds are finite so in order for us to discuss anything we must label it and once that happens we again go back to this argument. The problem is in the label and the attempt to quantify the unquantifiable."

Scott, that this is what I am getting at in my, oh so, simple minded way...well articulated, as usual, from you.

peace ruth.

Had hoped for a more intelligent review here but have found only one erroneous point after another. Deepak credits things to Dawkins which he doesn't say in his book - not the way to a constructive conversation. I recommend another (or maybe first) proper reading of the book.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.

I'm grateful for Dawkins and his perspective about God. The atheist professor is correct in his assertion that the existence of God cannot be objectively proven. As a scientist, he relies on critical and rational thinking, which has served humanity so well. Critical and rational thinking helps us detect errors, misinformation, outright lies, solve problems, and much more.

Dr. Nathaniel Branden, a U.S. psychologist who pioneered the study of self-esteem, concluded that one of the hallmarks of healthy self-esteem and psychological maturity is a high degree of confidence in one's mind and judgments. Such confidence is directly proportional to the quantity and quality of our critical and rational thinking. As we mature in life, we discard irrational beliefs and magical thinking because they are not supported by the facts. Dr. Branden also correctly indicated that feelings are not an infallible guide to the truth.

An example: Militant Muslims have blown themselves up and killed and wounded others because they felt that doing so was the will of God. They felt (believed) that way because of how they had been religiously indoctrinated and psychologically conditioned. Followers of other 'spiritual' schools of thought have also been indoctrinated and psychologically conditioned. Every person, religious, atheist, or agnostic, has been psychologically conditioned.

What is God? That depends on whom you ask; there is no authority on God. God, as defined by Catholicism, for example, if not the same as God as defined by the New Age religion or Judaism, Islam, etc. The version of God that millions of people believe in is a psychological construct, the product of human spiritualistic thinking.

Deepak Chopra listed beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, and art as proof that God exists. They are not. They are phenomena which Chopra has interpreted as proof that God exists. Interpretation of phenomena is not objective proof, a point that Dawkins has correctly made.

InspiredCriticalThinker at HuffPo

Einstein in his own words:

(I had) a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies. It was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment--an attitude which has never again left me.

--Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, 1949

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

--Albert Einstein

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

--Albert Einstein

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.

--Albert Einstein

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 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."

~ Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, (quoted by Richard Dawkins in his book.)

Came to IB after a long time and see the same old (but interesting) argument about the existence of God. LOL. Will/can the existence of "God" be decided in an argument amongst a few humans? Its like a few lightbulbs of 100 watt each talking about the Sun.

Pls first decide on who or what "GOD" is and then argue about God's existence.

Cheers!
Navin

It seems to me a lot of people have completely misinterpreted what Deepak Chopra has written in this post.

To me, what Deepak is essentially saying here is that there are things that science cannot yet measure, even things that we take for granted. So if science cannot yet prove the existence of any God, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any.

When we’re talking about things we cannot measure scientifically, believing in it becomes a matter of faith but so does disbelieving in it! What materialists do not seem to understand is that their scepticism is a belief which is not founded on science because they cannot actually prove that God doesn’t exist.

Just like Scott Masterton wrote, it seems that some materialists are fundamentalists in their beliefs. Why can’t some materialists be more open-minded and accept that because it hasn’t been proven yet it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist?

Scientific ‘truths’ are subject to change and scientific findings can be biased since they need an interpretation… the limitations of scientific inquiry should not be ignored and scientists should always be humble in my view.

With kind regards,

Lars

#103"One Consciousness ASSUMES that wave is part of the ocean.. however an assertion of a God assumes that it is NOT! So, one who believes in One Consciousness CANNOT logically believe in a God at all!!"~Desh

#116"LOL. Will/can the existence of "God" be decided in an argument amongst a few humans? Its like a few lightbulbs of 100 watt each talking about the Sun.Pls first decide on who or what "GOD" is and then argue about God's existence."~Navin

Nice to hear from both of you.

Richard Dawkins while answering questions in a public lecture, when asked by an offended individual said (paraphrasing): I am not saying that you are stupid if you believe in God what I am saying is that the God you believe in is stupid.

Alex

What is God?

I wonder why we humans feel so compelled to discuss the existence of a god or the concept thereof!

Man’s inexorable obsession with a god has driven him to great heights in imagining what such a god might look like and, by extension, the unfortunate creations of all the institutions of appeasement and exploitation: religion. The result of all this is the wholesale submission of his mind to others. The fact that we have not yet been able to fully unravel the facts of the universe is no reason for us to surrender our minds. Such an abdication has come at the expense of independent thought. It is a great injustice to our children that we pollute their tender, pristine and receptive minds with religious nonsense from the cradle on.

Because our ancestors understood very little of nature’s ways, they, unwittingly, submitted to religion and to its exploiters. All the ‘religious’ books were cleverly written by manipulators who were able to get away with it because of the general ignorance that prevailed in those times. Which begs the question: why are no new books being written in our times or why is it blasphemous to consider the revision (or updating) of the old?

It is possible that if we were to eradicate religion from our cultures and banish religious books to the trash heap of history, that we can begin to heal as a species and eventually live in peace and harmony? Religion is a stigma that serves to divide and label us into us- versus-them. How can such divisiveness be helpful to achieving lasting peace on earth?

If we submit to the traditional notion of a god who has created all things in the universe, then who was it that created this god?

#117

"It seems to me a lot of people have completely misinterpreted what Deepak Chopra has written in this post."

From the comments it seems that it is Deepak Chopra who misinterpreted Richard Dawkins and made unconvincing arguments for the existence of God. These arguments don’t prove the existence of God. Dawkins doesn’t reject that love, art etc exits. They are simply not proof that some God exists.

"be more open-minded and accept that because it hasn’t been proven yet it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist?"

If one reads Dawkins book he never says things which Deepak assumes he does. Be open minded to read the arguments of Dawkins before labeling him bigot or fundamentalist.

“Why can’t some materialists be more open-minded and accept that because it hasn’t been proven yet it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist?"

Dawkins answers this question with great clarity in his book. One has to be open minded not to assume that he doesn't address these questions.

Alex

Promoters of the existence of god cannot effectively use logic or even effective analogy to prove or demonstrate their point of view. The reason is they have no objective evidence of god. To claim god exists is inherently an act of what they call faith.

"Faith" is a euphemism for hubris and fantasy and the abnegation of logic. The hubris is to imagine that we are important to "the almighty". It makes some folks feel good not to have to acknowledge our triviality in the vastness of the universe. The universe doesn't care about us and that scares folks. So if they imagine they have a relation to the creator of the universe they feel (without reason of course) more important.

The fantasy is to imagine the universe as the creation of a supernatural entity. This is the typical meaning of god that is objectionable. The other versions of god as being the magnificence of everything tries to duck the issue with slippery semantics effectively denying the first typical meaning. Everyone can be awed at the almost everything in the universe: even more so as we gain understanding. That awe doesn't count as god.

The abnegation of logic occurs when folks can't accept that there is not a satisfactory explanation for all that happens in the world and the universe. Folks need a meta-explanation to blot out the fact that they don't know all that much. It is simply not logical to insist something is true with absolutely no evidence of it. To base ones behavior on faith and worse, on texts that profess to be the word of god dangerously illogical. People consistently misinterpret, and mis-translate those texts. Many folks are vulnerable to charlatan demagogues masquerading as interpreters of the word of god. The congregation may be sheep but the preachers are the wolves.

Some folks do feel "spiritual". We may find out what that feeling actually is some day. Meanwhile, those of faith would do well to drop the hubris, and do good works because it is good for humanity. That's a good enough reason. ~UpComing at HuffPo

Alex,

You make a lot of sense!

Cheers.

Aloha

Maybe the debate sparked some deeper issues in Deepak. I love when he gets sparked:) When Deepak shares he felt Dawkins has squeezed God in a corner maybe he meant he felt Dawkins squeezed him in a corner. We are never upset at what we think we are:) I am sure he felt Dawkins just annihilated his life story. Deepak's book Life After Death is so be You tefully written if you haven't read or listened to it be sure too. And his dvd How to Know God has just been released.

There is an interesting interview/article on Brian Swimme's perspective on evolution, science and religion on the site: What is Enlightenment?
http://www.wie.org/magazine/?ifr=hp-nav

And an interesting take on The Secret behind The Secret is on google video. Watch for the surprise ending: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4232897377629019446&q=video%3A++holographic+universe

love patty

I have read several of Dawkin's books. I am not familiar with him making any claims that he does not prove though logical analysis and sound logic.

So, Deepak, if you want to play the game at his level, prove your argument. The "logical proof" that you offer falls apart at the first blush; the illogical argument could be de-validated by any first year philosophy student.

TheGreatWazoo at HuffPo

Alex,

I appreciate your efforts to make us understand Dawkins better.

However, if I were you I would try to find better quotes because some of the ones you’ve provided here and during our discussion (on the thread about Deepak’s tv appearance in Canada), do not always portray Dawkins in a very good light. For example:
“Richard Dawkins while answering questions in a public lecture, when asked by an offended individual said (paraphrasing): I am not saying that you are stupid if you believe in God what I am saying is that the God you believe in is stupid.”
That anecdote makes Dawkins sound very arrogant, unpleasant and pretentious. Moreover, it doesn’t make any sense. If someone believes in a stupid God then logically speaking that person must be stupid. So either Dawkins didn’t make any sense or he was making fun of that person in a rather malicious way.

"There's this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out." ~Richard Dawkins

I hope that this is a joke because otherwise it says a lot about Dawkins’s willingness to be open-minded. I’m sorry, but I think it’s perfectly possible to be extremely open-minded without having your brains drop out!

To be honest with you, I find it a bit frustrating to find that you keep on insisting Dawkins is an open-minded person but the title of his latest book, the interviews I’ve read about him and some of your quotes really don’t show that. I feel almost compelled now to read his book to really get a better understanding of this seemingly very controversial person!

Take care,

Lars

There is a thing called humor. One should not be so narrow-minded so as to lose the sense of it. Of course Dawkins was being humorous when he said those words which I quoted previously. He doesn't deny the presence of “humor” in human beings and doesn't say that since we have humor, love etc that is proof for God.

Someone see the title, "God Delusion" and decide that he is close- minded.

Someone sees the title "How to know God" and says the author is open-minded.

Someone sees 'arrogance' in his words and say he is wrong.

Someone sees ‘sweet sounding words' and say he is right.

But, nothing proves that God exists that is what Dawkins says.

“Open-minded” is one of the most abused words.

Be tolerant of others views.

Dawkins never says that you should not believe in your God. He says that there is simply no valid proof that a God exists. Simple. It is difficult to understand why the so called spiritual people become so intolerant to his view and become so narrow minded as to say that "God" has been squeezed to a corner by a mortal Dawkins. He is doing a great service by spreading charity, morality, reason and to remove violence perpetuated based on religions. His world view is the same as any spiritual person in that they all aspire for human peace and progress. The intolerance shown by some people who believe in some sort of God only shows their insecurity in their beliefs and their narrow-minded view of acceptance of differing opinions while accusing others as arrogant, bigots and fundamentals while being guilty of it themselves. This isn’t how a spiritualist or a person who follows the teachings of a religion or who believes in a concept of God behaves. This is the irony.

Alex

PS: I talked about "open-mind", "arrogance", bogots" etc in "Deepak Chopra on CBC" thread. I don't want to continue on this any further.

Lars

"To me, what Deepak is essentially saying here is that there are things that science cannot yet measure, even things that we take for granted. So if science cannot yet prove the existence of any God, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any."

I think a lot of people are confused, and that is how Mr Chopra would prefer it.

Do not confuse feelings such as love with a belief in the idea of a biblical God.

Love is wonderful. I can tell you why it feels wonderful too. We are complex creatures who have evolved and now have a highly complex brain. Love is a the brains response to stimulus that ensures we reproduce and thus our genes survive through our children. Not very romantic but true. How does the existence of feelings prove the existence of a biblical God??????

I would agree that just because some "being" is not proven scientifically does not mean that it absolutely does not exist. But if we actually go so far as to assume that it does (like people assume that God exists) then why not believe in Thor? Or the tooth fairy? Or the flying spaghetti monster? The probability of them existing is exactly the same. i.e. almost non-existant.

"When we’re talking about things we cannot measure scientifically, believing in it becomes a matter of faith but so does disbelieving in it!"

But there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God whatsoever. Zip. Nada. Thus it would be safer to assume He does not exist rather than He does, no? Why not believe in Thor? It's because you were not raised to believe in Thor, or Thor worshippers do not provide you with a support network. That is why.

"What materialists do not seem to understand is that their scepticism is a belief which is not founded on science because they cannot actually prove that God doesn’t exist."

the burden of proof lies with those who claijm he does exist.

"Why can’t some materialists be more open-minded and accept that because it hasn’t been proven yet it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist?"

personally i do not rule out the existence of god completely. neither do i rule out the existence of fairies completely. in that respect i would say i am openminded. but the evidence available means that God is highly unlikely to exist.

"Scientific ‘truths’ are subject to change and scientific findings can be biased since they need an interpretation… the limitations of scientific inquiry should not be ignored and scientists should always be humble in my view."

you make an excellent point. indeed science is forever changing, but religion does not tolerate such a flexible attitude! despite millenia of people searching for proof of God none has been forthcoming, yet people still believe in God. This is illogical.

scientests changed their views when it was discovered that the world was not flat and the earth was not the centre of the universe. when evidence of God is forthcoming atheists will be forced to change their view. but i'm not holding my breath.

hope this has helped.

check out more comments upthread.

To Deepak: Trust, me, Deepak, you really do not want to debate Richard. In fact, I believe you are probably insincere in that statement (that you would LOVE it). In your blog, your arguments are full of Vitalist fancy, and could very easily be trounced by a clear thinking atheist like Richard. Like many New Age Gurus, you have co-opted phrases and ideas from science (especially quantuum physics) and abused them out of context as support for your rich (or should I say "get rich"?) fantasies.
You are an entertainer, not an intellectual. If you doubt this last statement, feel free to get yourself a shellacking in a debate with Richard
Dawkins.
To Lars: RW is saying "I'm not calling you stupid if you believe in God, I'm calling God a stupid idea that you happen to be deluded enough to believe in, if in fact you really believe in God". Okay?
That's one. Number two: The literalistic way you write, I can picture you looking at the floor to see if your brains have indeed dropped out, just to check if perhaps indeed you have become too open-minded. RD's obvious meaning is that many belief systems (Gods, Gurus and Ouji boards) require that we suspend our rational frame of mind more and more and more violently (requiring tremendous time, effort to undergo the brainwashing process...listening to tapes, reading, praying...etc) to allow in more and more and more absurdity. Clear enough? Do you want to argue that suspending ratonal thought while entertaining ABSURD (ie, miraculous, re-inventing the entire framework of reality and conflicting with all known evidence) fantasies as the basis for decision and action is the chief chracteristic that makes a person "open minded"?

L,
thank you for your post no.105. I'm sorry that you don't have time for more questions, because those are questions we need to ask ourselves if we want to get any real answers and not just discuss beliefs. I have asked myself those questions and found very interesting answers, which have expanded my understanding far beyond the belief in a brain which produces fear and love :) All the best to you in your quest!

i would highly recommend this link

http://godisimaginary.com/video.htm

It is so exciting to observe what is happening on this thread... I think many people here must be smiling. It reminds me of what Deepak wrote somewhere: "Science is God explaining God to God". And here we have God watching God arguing about God with God :)))) Oh well... some day we'll all know, won't we...

Thanks for your kind comment Aurora, do you believe in God? I highly suggest that all those who do should buy The God Delusion and study it, even if out of curiosity.

Failing that, go to godisimaginary.com

I double dare you! :o)

L :D:D Do you think watching that video will shatter my world ?
You're sweet...
No, I don't believe in God, I would feel like a sheep if I did. I know God. Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.

I watched the first part of that video, I'm sorry but it's late where I am so it will have to do. It intends to prove that prayer is a superstition, if I understand it right... But it seems to me that whoever made that video doesn't know what prayer is. They think prayer is asking for dice to show sixes, lol... Well, no wonder that God doesn't answer such an unintelligent prayer :D:D

There are many, many things in my life that prove that prayer not only works, it is THE way it actually works. But we probably define both "prayer" and "God" differently, L, so don't worry, I understand that you don't agree with me. It's okay :) But I think you would like the magic, if you just learned how ...

Aloha L

I enjoyed the video. Mahalo for the link. I believe God is in between the dice and the throw. How the dice hit is irrelevant. As Deepak has shared death is a miracle as birth is. What separates us from Heaven today is we can't believe we are already in it. love patty

Indeed belief and knowledge are not the same thing, but is not possible to know God, as God is not proven to exist. Only belief is possible.

The rest of that video goes on to address different issues e.g. what you may consider more intelligent prayer, please do give it a go, as well as the website www.godisimaginary.com (where it came from). The great optical illusion vid is good too!

I think you may be right that we do not define God and prayer in the same way, i define it in the classical Biblical/Christian sense.

Byee!

Thanks Patty

if God did not answer the prayer then surely Christians who say God answers prayers are lying?

Also Christians claim that God answers all prayers, however all bases are covered as the only answers are

1)Yes,
2)No or
3)Wait, God knows best.

Well that means sth will happen or it won't. Umm yeah, I think that is pretty obvious. I think the video explains better than me!

Cheers

"I know that I am conscious and have a self, even though Dawkins--along with many arch materialists--doesn't believe that consciousness is real or that the self is anything but a chemical illusion created in the brain."

It is not just Dawkins and the like, about a billion Buddhists are every bit as certain of exactly the same thing. No self, just an illusion, a myth of apparent immutable continuity that evaporates the moment it's studied.

Seems Deepak Chopra is out of touch with a hell of a lot more than he realizes as he makes shallow statements.

Heya guys,
How is everybody's?
I got an Synchro..experience..who knows? mail today, in my mailbox, what a princess, my god!

I got like 5 legal cases, kicking injustice,
medical liability and Dutch F#$%#% with doctors titles before their names, on my desk,

but that's not gonna spoil my..

diary..
of..

Love Quote of the Day:
"Love is like a set of keys; you always find it in the last place you looked."

Just Friends
by Anna Way

I never ment to love you
It happened quite by chance
I wanted just to be your friend
Not to share a new romance.

But something happened suddenly
Before my heart could know
I came to know a side of you
That caused my love to grow.

The tender way you touch me
The love that flow from your heart
I pray will never end
A miracle of circumstance
My love and my best friend.

Love, passion!

Aloha L

You know when I learned wait was an option it was enlightening. I understand it as yes, no and wait. And the gift is in the non-doing.

I remember when my friend's mother had her legs amputated. The minister was there and asked my friend to pray. She wanted to know why should they pray and his response was maybe that was why they should pray.

I have worked with amputees. And I found it was amazing they still felt like their limbs were there. I found myself seeing them as whole. I think some people get well to teach us how to get well and some people stay sick to teach us how to get well.

How the dice hit is irrelevant because all form is impermanent. We are not man playing God, we are God playing man and with that I think the winning is not hitting all the sixths. If one person wins so be it. God is that which doesn’t change. All I have to just do is change my mind when my sight is limited.

Mahalo for the dialogue. And I truly enjoyed the video, technology is amazing for God comes through where we never would expect him/her:) Luck switches as fast as a horse’s tail. love patty

hi patty thanks for your response! it is indeed enlightening and highly fascinating to hear a different viewpoint. i have a very very christian friend, when i next see her i must explore further! would you mind if i asked you a few q's?

"And the gift is in the non-doing."

how is the non-doing a gift? so, say you get a new job. you were told you'd get $X salary. But instead you get nothing for whatever reason. Would that be a gift too?

I have noticed that religion makes it easy to explain away anything, an explanation can be found to fit any situation (i'm not v good at explaining but the great optial illusion vid is very good)

"How the dice hit is irrelevant because all form is impermanent"

if a claim is being made then surely it is relevant when that claim is untrue? why bother with a "being" that does not stick to it's word? Why cling to the lucky horse shoe???

actually i think i know the answer to that.

people who are religious generally

1) were brought up that way
2) went through a trauma or a period of depression or loneliness, and found a support network via the religion.

well, it may be a security blanket and sure reality is scary but is it truly better to be in denial of what you deep down know to be the real truth? that god does not exist? by taking the courage to face reality, one can understand and deal with life mpre effectively.

i wish all the believers well!

Good, good God discussions, but we could use some work on attitudes and a lesson or two in the
ways amd means of influencing others. I said "we".

A persuading charismatic charlatan who takes to the pulpit his greed and self interest has no business
deciding for others which values are most important
to be happy, content and well-cared for.

I am inclined to believe in the inherent intelligent process of evolution but I also
have faith that there is progress being made.

I believe that Life is a purposely placed "force"
amongst other enviromental "forces", seen and un-seen.

All that is, I call the Kingdom of God.
The Director of intelligence who guides the process of progress I call God. The only goal
necessary is not necessarily a point in Time/Space.

Pantheism married to Theosophy is a means, not an end.

I don't want us to know everything...ever!

The gravity of the situation would suck us back
into that which was before there was an "is".

Now who wants that? I like this, don't we all?
If there is a proper time to use the word "should",
I say, you should believe that it's all good.
Good for the process and the goal-less goal.
Who wants to be the weakest link in the chain?
Who will push the scientist's button?

When push comes to shove, I say and believe, nay...
I know, sure as I know I exist,
God has a sense of humor!
He/She/It loves this stuff, completely!

We "should" too.

Gotta go drop my brain now, it's time for bowling.

This girl..
guys..
i would drop, everything!, in a heartbeat!, for
her..love...

The passion? no, fullfillment without..
why?
Did?
she?
come?
across?

@ this moment, @ it's all good, butt still..

I would love to love..
her,
Kicking (Ego) butt, and injustice, my pleasure...
but..

why..?

Heck,
Who know's?
maybe that's why I'm here..
and,
have a glass of wine,
with all of you,+

and a nap,
ltz,
Love, passion,

“I find it a bit frustrating to find that you keep on insisting Dawkins is an open-minded person” ~Lars

Richard Dawkins is open-minded about the idea of God.

God and fairies cannot be disproved.

“We explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle and Darwin's principle of natural selection. That combination provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary. It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable.” ~Richard Dawkins

“On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is certitude that God exists and 7 is certitude that God does not exist, Dawkins rates himself a 6: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”

Many posters seem to be surprised by how Deepak is dealing with “The God Delusion”. Richard Dawkins is the world’s foremost expert in biological evolution, he is also the man Deepak called a bigot and a fundamentalist!!

Should we be surprised about Deepak’s (un)reasonable thinking? Consider the prediction he made on a resent blog:

--Wisdom tradition will grow to embrace the great spiritual teachings at the heart of organized religion.
--Faith will no longer be seen as an irrational departure from reason and science.
--Aspects of the paranormal and miraculous will be widely credited.
--Prayer will be seen as real and efficacious.
--Manifestation of desires will be talked about as a real phenomenon.
Deepak even tells us mental cutlery bending is a reality that our culture is trying to deny us.

Do you think somebody with a faith-based brain, capable of writing these predictions would be able to have a reasonable debate with the reason-based mind of a Richard Dawkins, or, if he still were with us, a Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman or Sam Harris and Stephen Hawking. Yes, these guys are all Atheists!

I can just hear so many of you, “but there has to be something”!!!

Could we agree on one thing? The biblical God is for the gullible!

Sadly I don't think logic or reason or calling believers gullible is going to going to make them change their minds about religion, or they'd all have changed their minds by now!

Obviously, nobody is born with an inate belief in God/Allah/Thor/Shiva etc. Perhaps if they decided, when they feel ready, to take a little time to contemplate how they became religious it may get them thinking about the matter in their own way.....

some were simply born into a religious family, and have not dared to question the beliefs imposed upon them. or perhaps it had not even occured to them to question them. to question them would be risking their relationships with family and probably friends. just like in nature, the young are easy prey. they have not yet got the ability to think rationally for themselves. religion can be programmed into their mind and then it is may well remain there even when they exhibit rational thought in other ways.

some turn to religion after a psychological trauma of some sort. a breakup, a death, maybe even some medical condition or injury. maybe they had a near death experience that scared them. i can understand why people may find the thought of an afterlife comforting, but do not understand they we live forever through our children and our good deeds. i find that more of comfort than some imaginary place in the sky. imagine an eternity with cliff richard and hitler. ummm no thanks!

some turn to religion during a period of depression or loneliness. it is easier to turn to a readymade support network then to actually face up to reality and deal with a deep-seated issue or issues. vunerable people are easily manipulated, just as weak animals are the first to be preyed upon, usually with great success. this is perhaps saddest of all. i think is awful that someone would delibrately do this to others for their own material gain.

Well said L

i can actually relate to the last point personally. there was a period when i was a little depressed and i was very interested in tibetan buddhism. actually the dalai lama's words were very comforting and a lot of it was highly rational actually. there was none of this "believe or go to hell!" business. he insisted that people do NOT just believe (i.e. have blind faith) in his words, but actually try what he suggests and see if it works. in some ways it could be considered a philiosophy. there is no god in buddhism. there is no need for a god!

thanks skeptisch!

I would dare to say this in Deepak’s defence, if he is not consciously misleading his followers, he can be excused of dishonesty on the grounds that before deceiving others, he has taken great pains to deceive himself.

Aloha L

In Deepak's book Life After Death a question is asked: Was there ever a time when you didn't feel alive? The question surprised me as the how quick my body answered. I am not Christian I am probably what you would call eclectic. I would say I am open to anything that works. My daughter is Christian. I am very careful to support her in her belief.

What I feel Deepak is doing by interacting with Dawkins is he walking his belief. He will manifest just as if he took a job and was promised a abundance and got zilch. The power of prayer is praying for all you desire for the person who zilches you. He is walking his faith.

I think we fear change because we fear reprisal. I work with people who are ready to make their transition and what I try to do is create a great calm for them. Believing in a Presence that never leaves us that we can always identify with no matter how it looks becomes delightful uncertainty. Inseecure is in see cure. It is again to see the people whose prayers weren’t answered in artificial time trusting they will be answered in God’s Time. Just as the people who didn’t get the sixths.

In Las Vegas they have a gambling casino, which claims they have slot machines that give back 97% winnings. It is to identify with the 3% because scarcity works for you because that is when you ask and will receive. There is a book about Bringing Down the House where they used that rule. They used science knowing there is the 3%. Again that is the true power of Prayer where you use your mind and your belief, that is why Deepak is not worried about Dawkins making a fool out of him for in the long run Deepak will shine. Dawkins will equate God into a understanding of his own without making someone else’s belief wrong for it is all allowed.

There are three things that you need on the physical plane to survive: food, shelter and transportation. So you go to that place within you that is thought, thought being God and start to visualize those three things. I would see myself riding a surfboard, with a thousand rainbows covering me while I eat a mango. I know I will manifest I just don’t know from where. That is what Deepak is doing, just in a different way. He trusts the problem. You can do it too, it is just we have to believe the unbelievable. Dawkins has a lot of titles to give up; Deepak has already given that up. Deepak had to move out of his environment to find he never left. As he shares it are cycles of becoming and being. But there is no hit like knowing God has your back.

Try it, you deserve to have everything you desire. Just remember suffering comes from the root of desire. That is why we do nothing – no thing. love patty hoping I answered you questions: the 3% is always the suffering:)

The Chopra Delusion?

:o)

Ron, maybe we should call you BPR, as in Big Picture Ron. And Alex, what a patient and reasonable person you are!

ok, I've spammed the girl with all the migic I have.. homemade.. she know's my mail..oh my..God!
you know? the Akasic field, and all, in my diary,
Love ya all, but I don't have, the need to meet you, all, but, the present, I got in my incarnatination, of contrast..you gave me.. is appriciated..

Hey, I only have positivity to give.. here, and after..

Love, Passion,

Dr. Chopra paraphrases Stephen Hawking while trying to explain his mystic view of time as quoted from one of his interview:

Stephen Hawking in A Brief History Of Time says: "We live in a universe that has no beginning in time. We live in a universe that has no ending in time. We live in a universe that has no edges in space."

http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/new-age-catalysts/deepak-chopra/chopra.asp

These are excerpts from a public lecture by Stephen Hawking “The Beginning of Time”

http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/lindex.html

"In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted. We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end."

“The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge.”

So is Deepak Chopra not telling the complete story when He quotes people like Hawking and Einstien? Is he conveniently using these names to bring weight to his arguments when trying to convince his audience?

When a scientific theory is proved wrong scientists accept it and move on with another theory. Stephen Hawking and others scientists keep changing their belief in the validity of a certain theory or hypothesis, based on new scientific discoveries and new insights. The problem with religions is that they are fixed in their dogma. The problem with some new-age philosophers is that they conveniently reinterpret the scientific discoveries to confirm to their beliefs of mysticism. Will a new-age philosopher like Deepak Chopra’s agree that some of their teachings of “How to’s?” are wrong? No, Dawkins is a rational human but Deepak Chopra will never be wrong in whatever writings about spirituality he writes.

Skeptisch,

Einstein did not believe in a personal God of religion, but he did believe in some higher power. He also said...
"I
believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony in
what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions
of human beings."

I think L and you are a little confused between religion and God.... I don't think Deepak Chopra himself is a big follower of any kind of religion... but belief in God is different from that. L, I do agree with you on the fact how many are religious because they were programmed from day one about it, this goes true for most western religion followers. But having a belief in some higher organizing force is different. For that, you don't need to attend church everyday,or not eat certain kinds of meat or fear punishment for sins - bcoz sin might not even be a word in your dictionary.

Well, I believe since the Pirates have become ever more extinct, global warming has increased; and when there are no more pirates at all hijacking cruise ships; then the end will be here!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster said so.

Finite minds cannot possibly grasp the infinite, and w/o a supreme organizer, there would only be chaos!

That is what my mind tells me, but mitochondria seem to do a pretty good job of self-organization, ahh, but then who made the mitochondria . . .

The Jews invented YHWH, to deal with their oppression, and as a reward for the lesser to fight for the greed of the leaders, the Jews suffering under Roman oppression had Christ 2000 years ago to again uplift them; but they were not quite ready for the Messiah yet so they let the Romans take him. And the Arabs hearkened unto the call of Allah 1400 years ago. The Hindus had their gods even b/4 the alleged Aryan invasion, the ancient Persians had Ahura Mazda, and Buddha, well, Buddha had Buddha.

But all of these people, besides Buddha of course, only had confused knowledge of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who created everything, hence the super strings that keep the universe harmoniously functioning are actually his holinesses noodly appendages . . .

And all who resist the great Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Her/His cooked noodles, prophets such as I, shall be boiled in water (for 8 to 10 minutes).

O yeah!

Peace

and yea L, traditional budhism doesn't focus on God, but it does on Karma and soul. which ends up meaning the same thing if you don't believe in a personalized God who is up there to judge people.

hi alex

couldn't agree more! however mr chopra has many fans, who will agree wth him on some of his points (or should I say his one and only point?) thus i feel that the rational counter arguments such as yours and many others upthread are like water off a duck's back!

as someone who is in some ways very spirtual myself, i feel the most effective approach would probably to allow them to think it through in their own way. apologies in advance, but it may be best to repeat what i wrote earlier

Obviously, nobody is born with an inate belief in God/Allah/Thor/Shiva etc. Perhaps if they decided, when they feel ready, to take a little time to contemplate how they became religious it may get them thinking about the matter in their own way.....

some were simply born into a religious family, and have not dared to question the beliefs imposed upon them. or perhaps it had not even occured to them to question them. to question them would be to risk their relationships with family and probably friends. just like in nature, the young are easy prey. they have not yet got the ability to think rationally for themselves. religion can be programmed into their mind and then it is may well remain there even when they exhibit rational thought in other ways as an adult.

some turn to religion after a psychological trauma of some sort. a breakup, a death, maybe even some medical condition or injury. maybe they had a near death experience that scared them. i can understand why people may find the thought of an afterlife comforting. but they do not understand that we live forever through our children and our good deeds/works. i find that more of comfort than some imaginary place in the sky. imagine an eternity with cliff richard and hitler. ummm no thanks!

some turn to religion during a period of depression or loneliness (maybe after a breakup). it is easier to turn to a readymade support network then to actually face up to reality and deal with a deep-seated issue or issues. vunerable people are easily manipulated, just as weak animals are the first to be preyed upon, usually with great success. this is perhaps saddest of all. i think it is awful that someone would delibrately do this to others for their own material gain.

Alas . . .

What is 'sin?' Thou shalt not murder (of course you can murder under this [patriotic pride otherwise known as the 'just war theory'], this [democracy otherwise known as the 'white man's burden'], or this [killing the killer otherwise know as the eye for an eye doctrine] condition, or other such convenient 'exceptions').

Thou shalt not lie (of course you can lie under this [not telling the madmen where her/his potential victim is], this [not telling the husband/wife she is fat], of this [common people may not be able to handle the truth] condition, or other such convenient 'exceptions').

Thou shalt not commit adultery! Well . . .; if we enforced this commandment we sure could set up a new government

Thou shalt not eat the flesh of a living animal! Yuck!

Again I ask; what is 'sin'?

Peace

I don't get why most people who believe in God don't believe in evolution. Evolution was very real, there is enough evidence for it. I think Dawkins has grown up amongst such people who separate spirituality and science. For them spirituality was always equal to dogmatic religious belief. And their answer to every question is "because God said so".

Ofcourse evolution happend, but what was the reason? survival? sure... why do we need to survive? Why do we even have that instinct? Why are we here? If we all just die in the end and everything stops, then creation doesn't make any sense to me. The law that every action has an equal n opposite reaction has to hold if you believe in science-- and that is karma. If thats true then why is it that a kid born in Africa with deseases lives and dies a painful life, and you are privilidged enough to enjoy three meals a day. That kid didn't do anything wrong in this life and neither did you probably, but you guys live such a drastically different lives. Well I really think the answer to that lies in re-incarnation and soul. In the end, all souls are the from the same soup. Once they all merge in the ocean, and then there is no God OR there is only God.

thanks for your post nimita. i agree. i think there are varying degrees of belief in god.

there is the bibical God or Allah, who is highly judgemental. followers must act according to the scriptures or face severe punishment. in additon they must not believe in any other faith and convert others in any way possible, no matter how unethical, so that they adhere to the scriptures too. i think most on this board would agree that this is not good at all! they may think that they are moral and everyone else is immoral, yet they kill many in the name of their god. i'm sure i don't even need to mention the stoning of women, the spread of AIDS and the denial of abortion etc etc etc. the list goes on and on.

then is a more gentle loving god with followers who do not insist on converting or killing people etc. not as bad, but still deluded. and liable to change to the nutty category.

then there are people who believe in a higher organising force, such as yourself? there are also agnostics, who believe in something but not sure what.

what is most important is how beliefs manifest themselves as action via the believers. and how those believers may be abused by those who are in fact ammoral or immoral. those with irrational beliefs are obviously going to be manipulated more easily that those who think rationally.

personally i think i have rational beliefs, and believe in the laws of nature and science. these are observable e.g. orbits of planets, life cycles, the water cycle, weather patterns etc etc. it is a small step to but a very very different proposition from the irrational belief in a specific higher intelligence organising everything. that is a belief in some sort of god. evidence would point to the fact that there is no god, of any kind!

then there are satanists heheh

As mentioned, there has to be something!

Nimita, please read “The God Delusion”, many, maybe even all your questions will be answered!

i used to believe in re-incarnation, and don't discount it entirely. we are certainly re-incarnated in a way through our children and their children, and also if our dead bodies nourish the ground. there are a few alleged cases of reincarnation. however i do find the idea of a soul a little unbelieveable. it doesn't quite make sense. it is like an anology for someone's general character or "spirit". i think it is comforting to people to think they will live on somehow, however it is still an irrational belief.

Skep,

We are indeed living in the middle of the dark ages.

Incredibly, fiction and fantasy seem to hold a far greater appeal to the masses than a committed, honest search for truth through the scientific method.

That the vast majority of us still revere fantasy far more than reason clearly shows that the dawn of the age of enlightenment and unfettered-thinking is still far removed hence.

Good night, all!

Have a good one yourself, BPR. I think I call it a day too!

God and 9/11
what do YOU think

http://www.911blogger.com/node/4133

There is knowing and there is belief. Knowing is reality, and belief is Illusion.

I know that I exist, I know the experience of a rock, the light from the sun, and the experience of love, everything else is a fabrication, and an elaborate fiction and the only thing real about that is the experience.

You know in after thought I think a most important point Deepak once made was that 90% of Americans (the rest of the world as well) have been hypnotized by "The Cult".
(I might add the cults of Religion, Science, and Politics).

Both "God creation" and "evolution" are fabrications that distort. Yet they both contain a hint of truth which if integrated could lead to understanding the reality.

If you think about it objectively if you "believe" in heaven you suffer from psychosis.

So 90% of the nation is psychotic?

Okay I say that with refrain, because heaven can mean so many things, and no it would not be a full blown case of psychosis, just a mild one.

There is also no such thing as reincarnation if what you think you are is your ego. The ego dies with the body, only essence persists.

You have one other option; you are really some where else in a manner of speaking and are engaging in the greatest play in the universe.

There is knowing, possibility, and probability.
We are born with this. Knowing comes from direct experience. Direct experience can modify behavior but does not necessarily control it, with knowing we have freedom.

There is having beliefs, which are created and a fabrication. We are not born with beliefs.
Beliefs can be used to control or modify behavior (non-freedom).

One can know omnipotent Being.

One can believe in a omnipotent Being.

One can believe violence is not right, and perhaps not commit it out of fear of punishment.

One can know that violence begets violence, and it's detrimental effect.

Knowing does not divide us.

Beliefs can divide us, because anyone can make up their own version.

I can agree not to be violent just based on knowing, not requiring any beliefs.
Wisdom does not come from beliefs, it comes from knowing.

Beliefs are not required for Universal Freedom.
If one must accommodate those with beliefs, then they have lost some of their freedom. In other words those with "beliefs" have imposed upon those of just knowing.

Beliefs are not a requirement for existence or for one to be humane.

One can know cause and effect relationships and intelligence and use these to navigate reality.
Beliefs can distort cause and effect relationships and result in ignorance.

Knowing does not require the use of labels and separation.

Beliefs require the use of labels and separation.
One cannot “know” on the behalf of others, one can only know for one’s self.

Only the path to knowing can be told, the knowing itself cannot.

#157, C.J., that was rationally hilarious!

Angel-haired spagetti is real, I've seen it in the store.

Although it seems to be most fine, it's a bit thin for my taste.

My genes demand that I like fat, thick as a brick,
crooked, wiggly, preferrably well-cooked noodles.

And the sauce...my highly evolved taste buds,
having no freedom of choice, are slaves of garlic,
onion and oregeno with stewed tomatoes and
parmesan cheese sprinkled "on top of ol' Smokey!"

I can taste God now, mmmmm.....
Break the tax-free garlic bread.
Thank you, Lord!
Amen!!!

Skep...
If only there was a book which could answer every question ;)

Namita,

I wrote such a book. I have copied it's entire contents here.

YES

It correctly answers every question, one must simply know how to phrase the question.

There is another book passed down through the ages called "God Revealed".

People have risked their life to read the contents of this book, some have killed to posses it and paid a kings ransom to get it.

Oddly enough it contains only blank pages and a mirror.

Go figure....

Hi Ron,
It's late, and I should be contemplating sleep, but...
instead I dreaming, while
awake :)

And
your post # 165 caught my eye, along with one hundred and more above it!

This girl believes - we are in the 'age of enlightenment'.

Every child - and adult is part fantasy and fiction - anyone who has been to Disney World might agree :)
or read The Hobbit
or Harry Potter
and thrilled to the adventures of the mythic characters and the battles to be good, and overcome evil.

The mind is capable of incredible creativity, along with reality based thinking, and actions based on experience, experimentation and contemplation.

What is real,
what is fabrication?

Can cells in the body always distinquish between
real,
or 'gone mad'
as in mutations,
cancer cells replicating,
etc...

Why does thought have power to create,
from conjuring images, in the mind,
to words,
to actions?
From the 'unseen'
becomes the seen.

Why are many of us, well, definitely me :) - drawn to, and express - beauty, warmth,
Love.

Or why do certain thoughts
'turn' bad, crazy, and lead
to hurtful words, and actions?

Is there a God?
Is it a delusion to believe in God?

Can it be,
just possibly,

This is the wrong question to be asking.

Ok.
It's time for rest.
Hope you are enjoying a relaxing evening, mind free, and just
present to the moment!
Truth be told - the present moment holds all the answers, even if it seems hidden from view. Thinks this girl with the sleepy eyes!

With love,
~ Kate

True Empiricism is so seldom encountered these days, mostly because people want certainty, and the 'mirage' factor eliminates this possibility for the empiricist. A true empiricist would, in the instance of this topic, observe the empirical data, from church buildings, cultural artifacts, social traditions, as well as accounts of NDEs and reincarnations, etc. and then conclude God might possibly exist. The conclusion that God is a delusion, whatever else it may be, is not an empirical conclusion.
No one here, however, has made the argument that the existence of a temple proves the existence of God. While such data is empirical, and therefore acceptable to the empiricist, there are obvious problems with the purely empirical approach when certainty is desired.
Usually one encounters empiricism these days as an accoutrement that has been grafted onto something else. The something else wants to bolster its credibility and thus the resort to empiricism, despite its inherent problems. When the issues surounding empiricism itself are understood, however, the argument boils down to the real essence of the inferences that both 'sides' are making.
Thus the point that the commentators have much more in common than they are willing to acknowledge.
It is indeed a grandiose comedy, starring ourselves as the pretenders.
At any rate, in addition to making these wonderful comments, I have also seen a movie AND gotten laid tonight - hope all of you can say the same, if not now then soon.

Measurable and Immeasurable

Though thou art that with ratio thee
Measure with clean measure ev'ry generality,
Know how stars walk through their streets,
Unfolding creatures and their deeds,
Endearing and esteemed; if not, idle and bigot
in the measurable thee t'immeasurable core forgot.

by Albert Verwey, Dutch Poet 1865-1937
courtesy translation 2006 by C

Alex,

I’m a bit puzzled by your latest Dawkins quote:

“I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”

So basically he’s saying he’s not 100% sure that God doesn’t exist, which I’m glad to say makes him more open-minded than I thought.

But why then did he call his latest book “The God Delusion”? If he’s not 100% sure it’s a delusion, maybe he should have phrased the topic of his book as a question like “Is God a Delusion?”. Wouldn’t that sound more open-minded and true to his work since he hasn’t found a definitive answer yet?

I thought that his hypothesis was that God is a delusion and that he can prove it - which is why the title of the book is so assertive. But if he can’t prove it and if he’s not even completely convinced it’s true, then his hypothesis can’t be validated, can it? What kind of science is this?

So maybe I’ve been wrong all along thinking this was a book that claimed to prove God was a delusion in a scientific way. It now sounds to me it’s actually based on speculation and unproven assumptions.

Take care,

Lars

Alex, you tried, and how! Let’s give the gentle giant Carl Sagan the last word:

“You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe”.

Guys, maybe,
God, quantum physics, mechanics, natural, laws,
incarnation, soul, and so, on and on..,

maybe..
It's more simple,
than..

Love Quote of the Day:
“Love is never needing a snooze button because when the alarm goes off thoughts of your loved one make it impossible to fall back asleep."

Think about that..
one..
;)
Love, Passion,

It’s sad that Alex has given up on this debate, it’s been interesting to read your perspective on things even if I don’t personally agree with it all. I think it’s healthy to question things and if Dawkins questions things that great but we should be allowed to question his rationale for certain things. Just because he’s at Oxford university, it doesn’t mean that his infallible to mistakes or errors of judgment. Rupert Sheldrake used to lecture at Cambridge University and many scientists dismiss him.

I have found an interesting article from the New York Times written by Jim Holt on 22 October 2006 entitled “Beyond Belief”. Here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/books/review/Holt.t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=42401f78697af14d&ex=1163912400

I urge you everyone here who is interested in getting an intelligent review of the book to read this article to understand the shortcomings of “The God Delusion”.

I found it interesting to read that his book is not supposed to be scientific as you would expect from an eminent scientist (“the purpose of this book is not to explain science. It is rather, as he tells us, “to raise consciousness,” which is quite another thing. “)

Here are a few excerpts:

“The least satisfying part of this book is Dawkins’s treatment of the traditional arguments for the existence of God.”

“[Dawkins] dismisses the ontological argument as “infantile” and “dialectical prestidigitation” without quite identifying the defect in its logic, and he is baffled that a philosopher like Russell — “no fool” — could take it seriously. He seems unaware that this argument, though medieval in origin, comes in sophisticated modern versions that are not at all easy to refute. Shirking the intellectual hard work, Dawkins prefers to move on to parodic “proofs” that he has found on the Internet, like the “Argument From Emotional Blackmail: God loves you. How could you be so heartless as not to believe in him? Therefore God exists.”

“But if you think that there must be some ultimate explanation for the improbable leaping-into-existence of the harmonious, biofriendly cosmos we find ourselves in, then the God hypothesis is at least rational to adhere to, isn’t it?”

“The beauty of Darwinian evolution, as Dawkins never tires of observing, is that it shows how the simple can give rise to the complex. But not all scientific explanation follows this model. In physics, for example, the law of entropy implies that, for the universe as a whole, order always gives way to disorder; thus, if you want to explain the present state of the universe in terms of the past, you are pretty much stuck with explaining the probable (messy) in terms of the improbable (neat). It is far from clear which explanatory model makes sense for the deepest question, the one that, Dawkins complains, his theologian friends keep harping on: why does the universe exist at all? Darwinian processes can take you from simple to complex, but they can’t take you from Nothing to Something. If there is an ultimate explanation for our contingent and perishable world, it would seemingly have to appeal to something that is both necessary and imperishable, which one might label “God.” Of course, it can’t be known for sure that there is such an explanation. Perhaps, as Russell thought, “the universe is just there, and that’s all.”

“[Dawkins] is skeptical that religion has any survival value, contending that its cost in blood and guilt outweighs any conceivable benefits. Instead, he attributes religion to a “misfiring” of something else that is adaptively useful; namely, a child’s evolved tendency to believe its parents.”

“[Dawkins] is also hasty in dismissing the practical benefits of religion. Surveys have shown that religious people live longer (probably because they have healthier lifestyles) and feel happier (perhaps owing to the social support they get from church). Judging from birthrate patterns in the United States and Europe, they also seem to be outbreeding secular types, a definite Darwinian advantage.”

“Despite the many flashes of brilliance in this book, Dawkins’s failure to appreciate just how hard philosophical questions about religion can be makes reading it an intellectually frustrating experience. As long as there are no decisive arguments for or against the existence of God, a certain number of smart people will go on believing in him, just as smart people reflexively believe in other things for which they have no knock-down philosophical arguments, like free will, or objective values, or the existence of other minds. Dawkins asserts that “the presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question.” But what possible evidence could verify or falsify the God hypothesis?”

I will try to get Dawkins' book. I generally tend to agree more with atheists and scientific people than with religious people. Even though I do believe in re-incarnation and soul and some higher organizing intelligent power.
But if the main argument of Dawkins' is..
"Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries. Those that it can't explain don't exist." .....
then I do believe that there is something about God that IS needed to explain the world... like the Mozart music example that Deepak Chopra gave. Lets hope that science uncovers all mysteries though, but I think in the end when it does uncover all, it will come up with the theory of this higher organizing power -- like the zero point energy or similar.

Science itself changes every time to prove something. We have come a long way from Newtonian physics which was considered the ultimate in those times and then the relativity theory came up. Einstein went as far as to talk about unified field and bending of space and time which Newton would have had trouble understanding in his linear time system. Many theories nowadays contradict Einstein too. So science always comes up with an explanation by more theories.

Hinduism and other eastern religions have always stressed on the fact that this world is an illusion, that its not real. The "vacuum fluctuations" theory says that the particles/anti-particles created in energy fluctuations in vacuum are "virtual particles" because they come into existence out of nowhere and then disappear. There are theories that justify the creation of the universe with these virtual particles which came into existence out of nothing and due to big bang went far off in space and did not get an opputunity to combine back.... so basically saying that the world today is composed of virtual particles which became real..isn't that what hinduism said years ago too?

http://www.braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm

@Lars 175

What Dawkins says is that on the basis of probability, i.e. the lack of available evidence, it is a safe bet to say that god doesn't exist. However, like any true scientist he doesn't dismiss the extremely slim possibility that someone one day might present evidence acceptable to a scientist that god exists. In which case, being a scientist, he would be prepared to change his mind. That is the difference between a scientist and a believer, the scientist will base his decision on the evidence and change it if sufficient evidence is available while the believer is prepared to believe without any evidence at all. That is the delusion he speaks of, i.e. the belief without proof, or faith as it is otherwise known.

John

Nimita says,
“I will try to get Dawkins' book. I generally tend to agree more with atheists and scientific people than with religious people.”

Thanks Nimita, that is really the only fair way to deal with “The God Delusion”. You can then tell us where you have a problem with what Dawkins says.

It is unfair to start a debate with, I have not read the book but…..!

To everybody, have a nice weekend.

Interesting article Lars.

@Nimita

Actually none of the present day theories disprove Einstein though some takes his work further and others cover areas he didn't and every experiment tried so far actually supports Einstein. Similarly, Einstein's work was both an extension of Newton's work as well as moving into areas that Newton didn't have the knowledge to cover but probably had the intellect to understand. Newton's work is not incorrect as such simply incomplete and has bounds, i.e. areas were it is valid and areas where it is not, i.e. those areas covered by relativity and quantum mechanics. So Newtonian physics can be considered a subset of a greater physics theory comprising Einstein theories and quantum mechanics and any other discoveries we make along the way.

Ironically, one aspect of Einstein's theory which he later discounted and considered an error, the universal constant, may in fact be more right than he thought when we consider dark energy, now that we have results from a wealth of Hubble observations. As was announced this week.

While science is always changing, that is it's very strength, as it is not rooted in some past pronouncement by some mythical being and his followers but is constantly expanding and improving on our knowledge as more and more experiments are done in all fields. Though that very lack of absolutism in science is probably one of the reasons why many people prefer the false certainty that religion appears to offer.

Deepak: you preface your piece with "I want to argue against him point by point in some detail".

By framing the situation in those terms, you automatically set up battle stations and deepen the divide, even if that was not your intention. For people who have sunk a lifetime's worth of work into a certain position, like you and Richard Dawkins have, I doubt that any substantial change of heart will occur as a result of debates and arguments. At best, those of us who aren't yet strongly identified with either position might assimilate a few new points from the sidelines.

This is Intentblog, not just any ol' blog. It's my first, and to date, the only blog I read (I suspect many others are like me in this regard). I have been enriched tremendously by the nature and depth of the topics brought up, and by the insightful exchanges I have witnessed here. But I'll venture to bet that all the 'aha' moments I've had here came during moments of reflection and inner stillness, not by 'facts' flung in my face or shot at me in the heat of battle. If argue we must, why not use a new generation of debate rules:
- Before we plunge into what divides us, first identify what unites us.
- Next (and this comes from Stephen Covey's "First Things First"), before we make a point of rebuttal, let's first describe our opponent's point in our own words (and this is the kicker), to the opponent's satisfaction.

As some others have pointed out, there are plenty of differences in just what the word 'God' means to people, before we can take up the matter of whether it’s a delusion. 180-plus responses in two days is a clear indicator of the interest in this topic (notwithstanding the generous re-posting from HuffPo), but I'm not sure if we've moved the needle any.

My $0.02. Respectfully,
sWORDSman

Yo men of testosterone overflow. dudes...

At long last, see land ahead! dont spin your tires... move on.

flagin a dead horse keeps you in the same place for too long and that can be kinda borin, not to mention you might yourself become the flogged! no?

Whoa!

John,
I personally think Einstein was a genius and I wish he lived to justify his unified field theory. It could have answered many questions. But there are many scientists out there who do not agree with Einstein and many count on the Ether theory that Einstein disapproved of.

Einstein's theory did not disregard Newton, but it came up with a whole new dimension, it made Newton's theories to not be absolute. I think we need many more of those whole new dimensions and we will eventually we able to prove the existence of this higher organizing power.

I have also read about how these scientists say that its considered "dumb" in the circles to discount Einstein and hence many other scientists don't try to swing that way.

Dear Deepak, nice post!

#179 Jim Holt is one of the Nytimes book reviewer. Most people would have never heard of him. I am not impressed by his reviews (about 30 or so) of some of the books in the past. I find them biased.

I will rather go with the reviews of Noble Prize winners before I read the book :)

#184, #185

In this book Dawkins with lucid simplicity exposes the intellectual poverty of the stratagems used by the propagators of fundamentalist religious ideas. . . . Unless the majority of ‘believers’ can reach some rapprochement with the rational arguments in this book and recognize the true humanity and spirituality implicit in them, the tightening grip of irrational mystical belief will not only extinguish the Enlightenment but also, in this age of monstrous weapons, the whole human race.

Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel Prizewinner

"Passionate religious irrationality too often poses serious obstacles to human betterment. To oppose it effectively, the world needs equally passionate rationalists unafraid to challenge long accepted beliefs. Richard Dawkins so stands out through the cutting intelligence of The God Delusion."

James D. Watson, Nobel Prizewinner, Co-discoverer of the DNA Molecule

By the way did any noble prize winner ever give a review of Dr. Chopra’s book? Just wondering :)

@Nimita:

The ether theory, which was put forward by Fitzgerald and Lorenz I believe, while interesting and gave a similar maths to Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, introduced a complexity that was not borne out by observation, then or now, and so by Occam's razor Einstein's theory was the accepted one. Thus while some might disagree with aspects of his theoryies, every single experiment relative (sorry couldn't resist :) ) to his theories as well as a multitude of observations have so far vindicated them.

Similarly, Einstein's postulation of the universal constant, which he thought in error, and now may be correct, or at least on the correct lines, is not the same as the Ether theory. For the ether theory cannot account for dark matter, dark energy or the observed universe.

Absolutism, or rather lack of, is no problem to scientists as it simply means that there are more questions needing asking and answers to find. Personally, I think that one day we will have an unified theory, whether that proves your higher organising power, who knows. From my point of view, so far at least, it is not necessary to explain our universe by either experiment or observation. However, if scientifically valid evidence was to surface for such a higher organising power I would reconsider with no problem. After all, that is how good science works, i.e. on the preponderance of evidence. As a good scientist only sticks with a theory while the evidence supports it and not because of dogma.

John

@Nimita

The only area that Einstein can really be considered to be in error, so far at least, is in his dismissal of quantum mechanics. Which I believe was more on a philosophical level than a scientific one. But then even the greatest make mistakes.

There are plenty of quite well known in their fields senior scientists who dispute aspects of Einstein's work but none have yet proven any of them wrong. That doesn't mean that they never will, but as of now they haven't.

Of course scientist are only human open to the same failings as everybody else so much like anyone with so much invested in a particular point of view there will be those who will look on those who disagree with someone of Einstein's stature as heretics. But that is not good science, though the difference is that if these so called heretics were to prove their misgivings with Einstein theories then the majority of scientists would accept it and see what fields of research and new knowledge it opened up, as happens all the time in science. Science is always ultimately self correcting of erroneous or incomplete theories.

John

John P,

I understand what you're saying in post #181. Dawkins bases his beliefs on probabilities but as that implies, and he admits it himself, there could still be a chance that God exists.

So his assertions are based on belief and assumptions rather than proof since he cannot prove with full certainty that God is a delusion.

This is why this debate we’re having now could go on forever because some of us are failing to realize that we’re dealing with what is scientifically unknown.

The assumptions we make about the scientifically unknown, and that includes Dawkins, have to be based on faith since there is no science to back it up. I hope that you can understand that Dawkins faith in that God is a delusion is as unscientific as a believer’s faith in God’s existence.

You are saying that “it’s a safe bet to say that God doesn’t exist”. How can you say that if you don’t know how much evidence there could be in the case for God but that we don’t know of yet? That missing evidence could be vastly more substantial than you or I could even imagine. Can't you see that this is a belief that you have rather than absolute proof?

I'm not saying that people with blind faith are necessarily right but we cannot prove them wrong unless we have evidence to do so.

I find it ludicrous that people can make assertions one way or another about what is yet scientifically unknown.

Take care,

Lars

Sorry, John P

In my last sentence I meant to say that I find it ludicrous that some people can make bold assertions and even come up with probabilities about what is yet scientifically unknown and claim that their assertions are based on science!

I find it ridiculous and ludicrous when people like Deepak Chopra make bold statements that "God Exists" and say that, "I will tell you how to know God" and write books about it saying that there is scientific evidence for it! Scientific evidence so far doesn’t need an explanation of God. I applaud Richard Dawkins for making such bold statements and backing them up with reason and scientific evidence.

Lastly John,

If I buy a lottery ticket I can calculate the probability of winning because I know all the variables involved and all the possible outcomes, so I can make a scientifically valid calculation.

When it comes to scientific unknowns, how can I possibly calculate the probablity of something if I'm not even aware of all the variables and possible outcomes? Dawkins claims must be based on gut feelings rather than anything else. Just because he cites some interesting facts in his book, it doesn't mean that he can calculate probabilities based on that since he hasn't proven all that he needs to prove in order to do that.

@Nimita:

Simple, what real evidence is there for god? None that I am aware of. Yet all our existing scientific knowledge can model and make accurate predictions time and again. So the evidence is on the side of science, i.e. the probability is that science is the right way to look at the universe or the probability is that there is no god or at the very least he is irrelevant. Thus through Occam's razor his existence is not necessary.

However, as you can't prove a negative, there is a very small possibility that he does exist. Thus while all the existing theories for the universe working as it does doesn't need god and there is no apparent evidence for his existence then the probability is that he doesn't exist.

But no good scientist will make a dogmatic statement in such a situation which is why Dawkins admits that there is a very small possibility that god does exist. However, this possibility is so small that it can effectviely be ignored until or if evidence to the contrary surfaces.

However, believers on the other hand profess the existence of god on non existent evidence and that is where the delusion of the title comes from. For to believe so strongly when there is no evidence is at best naive and at worst delusional from a scientific point of view.

John

"When it comes to scientific unknowns, how can I possibly calculate the probablity of something if I'm not even aware of all the variables and possible outcomes? Dawkins claims must be based on gut feelings rather than anything else. Just because he cites some interesting facts in his book, it doesn't mean that he can calculate probabilities based on that since he hasn't proven all that he needs to prove in order to do that."

why not believe in the sugar plum fairy? why is the probability of God existing any higher? There has been NO proof of God despite hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of people actively trying to prove his existence. Thus we can conclude God is as likely as any number of Gods such as Thor i.e. the probability is very very low, if not in fact even lower! prople haven not been seeking the existence of Thor.

Lars - I truly feel that the question believers should be asking themselves is - when and why did I start to believe?? We are not born with an inate belief in God - it is learned.

So Lars - if you believe in God, when and why was it that you started to believe?

@Lars

When all the existing evidence when it comes to accuaracy of knowledge is on the side of science so far, and none yet on the other it is not hard to state that the probability is for one side over the other even if you can't put an exact figure on it due to the lack of evidence on the god side. But as we can't prove a negative even without evidence, for as they say the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, there is a very small possibility that one day someone might supply scientifically acceptable proof that god exists. Until then the probability, even if we can't put an exact figure on it, is that god doesn't exist and the possibility he does is infinitesimally small, i.e. for all practical purposes can be ignored, which is Dawkins' position.

John

reasons why people believe in God

some were simply born into a religious family, and have not dared to question the beliefs imposed upon them. or perhaps it had not even occured to them to question them. to question them would be risking their relationships with family and probably friends. just like in nature, the young are easy prey. they have not yet got the ability to think rationally for themselves. religion can be programmed into their mind and then it is may well remain there even when they exhibit rational thought in other ways.

some turn to religion after a psychological trauma of some sort. a breakup, a death, maybe even some medical condition or injury. maybe they had a near death experience that scared them. i can understand why people may find the thought of an afterlife comforting. but we live forever through our children and our good deeds/work. i find that more of comfort than some imaginary place in the sky. imagine an eternity with cliff richard and hitler. ummm no thanks!

some turn to religion during a period of depression or loneliness. it is easier to turn to a readymade support network then to actually face up to reality and deal with a deep-seated issue or issues. vunerable people are easily manipulated, just as weak animals are the first to be preyed upon, usually with great success. this is perhaps saddest of all. i think is awful that someone would delibrately do this to others for their own material gain. by facing reality, we can more easily understand and deal with the issues in our lives that need addressing. as adults, it's time to throw away that security blanket.

some people may turn religious after meeting someone religious. there is group called God's whores or sth. A group of religious people who delibrately go out to bars and clubs etc and pick up others with the sole intention of converting them.

seriously.

apologies - APPARENTLY they ceased activities around 1988

http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Flirty_Fishing

John P,

You write: “But as we can't prove a negative even without evidence, for as they say the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, there is a very small possibility that one day someone might supply scientifically acceptable proof that god exists. Until then the probability, even if we can't put an exact figure on it, is that god doesn't exist and the possibility he does is infinitesimally small.”

I’m sorry but I still have a problem with this, you are saying that we can’t put an exact figure on it but the probability that God exists is infinitesimally small. If you can’t put an exact figure on it, how can you be so sure the possibility that God exists is infinitesimally small and that you got your figures right? Shouldn’t science be repeatedly testable and show the same exact result many times over in order to have some validity?

You also write:

“There has been NO proof of God despite hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of people actively trying to prove his existence. Thus we can conclude God is as likely as any number of Gods such as Thor i.e. the probability is very very low, if not in fact even lower!”

Just because no one has been able to prove the existence of God in a scientific way for hundreds and hundreds of years, it doesn’t mean that the possibility of proving it is getting smaller. That doesn’t make any sense. I could equally argue that the possibility of proving God’s existence is getting more and more probable as science and technology is getting more and more advanced.

Take care,

Lars

L,

Thank you for your interesting question (“So Lars - if you believe in God, when and why was it that you started to believe?”).

Well I could write endlessly about this but I’m afraid I don’t have time to write much more today. But I can tell you that my parents are not religious and I’m not religious either. However, I have had experiences which I think were extraordinary and suggest to me that there is a lot more to life than we are conditioned to believe.

So I believe that we should try and be as open minded as possible and respect the beliefs that people have about things even if they can’t make others see or experience what they’ve experienced and prove it in a scientific way yet. It’s important to respect what others think unless they are harming themselves or others and it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are wrong.

Most importantly, I believe that it’s important to stay as open minded as possible and to explore all possibilities because that’s the only way we can truly progress. Sceptics don’t always realize that it’s their skepticism that prevents them from experiencing extraordinary things. I believe that when Dawkins for instance is saying he’s not 100% certain that God exists but that he chooses to make the assumption that he doesn’t exist – any assumption like this simplifies one’s view of life and probably makes it easier for some scientists to live with but it inevitably forces him to take a more narrow minded perspective. That, I think, is really unfortunate and puts a brake on the possibility of scientific progress.

With kind regards,

Lars

Dear Dr Chopra,

Several of your previous blogs have already elaborated on some of these arguments you mention: ‘Is Jesus is coming back?’, ‘Reincarnation’, Life-after-death, ‘Intelligent Design’ and others.
People like Richard Dawkins and Dominic Dunherst have amply demonstrated the nullity of efforts to give scientific accreditation to religious institution, whether it be through miracles, the Noachian Flood, Resurrection, Intelligent Design or other such ideologies. To continue arguing would be a redundancy here and certainly take up much space and time though reducing the discussion to seven specific arguments might help.
It is not the role of Science to find proof of God. Like Carl Sagan says and many before him: ‘The bible is made to tell us how to go to heaven and not how the heavens go’. That is where the difference lies. Science is a tool used to analyze the world we live in. It has to be rational at all times. Religion is of the realm of irrationality and faith. You can’t expect science to accredit irrationality.
The only way one can hope to obtain proof that God (a god) exists is if that god decides to communicate (have access) with us. We are told that he has that power (he is omnipotent and all powerful), then why does he not send us an E-mail or a TV ad or a radio message that would be unequivocal and undeniably proof of his existence. Einstein himself said: “God may be complex but he is certainly not mischievous”.
I would like to cut to the chasse at this point and quote Dominic Dunherst in his conclusion to his book “The man who thought he knew”:
“God is undeniably inaccessible to Man and Man is inaccessible to God because there is absolutely no admissible evidence, in all of history, of any communication between the two. This inaccessibility of either one towards the other abolishes, ‘ipso facto’, the authenticity of any and all Religions that profess scriptures ‘dictated’ by God. This fundamental principle may be considered as ‘inaccessism’.

• At this point in our technological and historical evolution, God is inaccessible to Man.
• There is, to this day, no substantiated, unequivocal and admissible evidence that God has ever ‘accessed ‘Man.
• Until new technology enables Man to have access to God, God will remain a mystery.
• Until God manifests himself in an unequivocal, substantiated and irrefutable manner, He will remain a mystery.
• As defined by Religion, Miracles and Angels are and always have been myths or legends. There is not to this day the slightest irrefutable, substantiated and admissible evidence for their existence.
• Because God is inaccessible to Man, prayer is most likely to be an illusion when used as a means of direct communication.
• If God exists and some prayers get through to Him, they can only establish a one way communication unless God responds and establishes an ‘access’ to Man, but there is to this day no evidence of such a liaison.
• Prayer, consequently, can only be seen as a placebo for psychological health and harmony in our irrational needs.

An A-temporal God?

There exists in our world a certain number of physical laws that, even if we stubbornly reject them, regiment our everyday lives whether we like it or not. There are certainly many things yet to discover but we know these laws are universal. We also know that the universe is in perpetual change. ‘Without change, there would be no growth, no life, no death _ nothing.’ (in “Confirmation”, page 258, by Khephra Burns and Susan L. Taylor). Time is perpetual change.
We are the children of Time. If Time didn’t exist, neither would we. If time were to ‘stand still’ at this very instant, I would be “frozen” in front of my typewriter forever and ever. I would no longer write, no longer grow, no longer breath, no longer live. The Earth would be an inert chunk of matter forever stopped in its orbit like some sort of ball pinned to a giant blackboard.
Time and metamorphosis are one and the same. Nothing really dies or is newly born. Everything merely changes incessantly from one form to another. That is the magic of Time and Nature.
We can comprehend that there is no change without time and no time without change. We can ask, what came first, time or change? Did time appear at the ‘big bang’? One thing is certain, if time appeared at the ‘big bang’ so did change. And if time existed before then, there must have been change there too, where ever ‘there’ was.
If there is a relation between time and God, and between God and creation, then we can establish certain connections.
If God exists (in the unique God hypothesis) and if God is timeless (a-temporal or eternal) then God is not of this universe. This world being of change and therefore temporal, an eternal God cannot be of this world.
Secondly, if God is of this world, if He is temporal then God is of change. In other words, God must also follow the laws of change. Whatever the forms, shapes, and matters He may be made of, accumulated or condensed into one ‘bundle’ or not, He must undergo change. He will undergo changes in aging, deterioration, regeneration and so on.” End of Quote.
Like Dominic Dunherst, I consider myself as an Agnostic Inaccesseist. This is to say that we do not exclude systematically the existence of some Higher Order but we deny any and all authenticity and authority to scriptural religions. This is opposed to Richard Dawkins who, if I am not mistaken, is a declared atheist.

Yours Truly,

Maurice Guy

Thanks for your kind response Lars! I'd certainly agree that we should be open minded, I know I am. However I feel that given complete lack of evidence of God despite many centuries of people searching for evidence, it is safe to say the probability of the existence of God is low. There is no less probabilty of Zeus, Thor or any other manner of god or indeed any imaginary monster or god existing. So yes, the flying spaghetti monster could exist, and pink winged elephants cold be flying in the far reached of the universe, but we have to ask ourselves, what is the probability??

Heheh I don't think there's any danger of scientests putting any brakes on scientific progress! Surely it is those who are religious who wish to put the brakes on science, e.g. stem cell research, as it contradicts with their belief system.

Ahhhh so you are not actually religious in the traditional sense. I think that few on this board are, but they should be careful not to use the term God if it is not the biblical God they are referring to. To quote Weinberg & Dawkins

"The Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and atheist) Steven Weinberg made the point as well as anybody, in Dreams of a Final Theory:

Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal.

Weinberg is surely right that, if the word God is not to become completely useless, it should be used in the way people have generally understood it: to denote a supernatural creator that is 'appropriate for us to worship'."

Cheers

L

Just a thought.
I do not think time will ever come when we can scientifically prove existence of God. Can we really prove that there is such thing as love? One has to experience love. May be love is delusion. Similarly, may be God is delusion for those who have not experienced it. A lot of saints of present and past have experienced God. It is unlikely that they are/were all in delusion. I think God is simply a feeling of personal experience. For those who experience, it is real and beyond doubt. We will never prove existence one way or other. We need not mix religion with God.
Morris

Hi Morris

If you are interested these issues are addressed clearly upthread.

For starters, "if the word God is not to become completely useless, it should be used in the way people have generally understood it: to denote a supernatural creator that is 'appropriate for us to worship'."

To confuse the term God with with feeling is both misleading and confusing.

Cheers

L

sorry i meant - to confuse the term God with feelingS e.g. love, fear etc is both misleading and confusing.

"In fact, insofar as brain research can locate centers of activity that light up whenever a person feels love or pleasure or sexual arousal, these subjective states leave objective traces behind. That makes them more real, not less. In the same way, the brain lights up when a person feels inspired or close to God; therefore, we may be getting closer to the connection between inner and outer states, not further away."

How exactly does this prove the existence of God? Just because someone may believe in God, or "feel" God, God must exist? Not convinced. If I believe I own all the land in the world, does that make it so? Why stop there? If I feel that I am master of the Universe does that make it reality?

If so, the Milky Bars are On Me!

Dr. Chopra, I would like to apologize on record to you and your audience for a comment that was too long and not on point. It was my first internet comment and a beginner’s mistake. It will not happen again. This “God Delusion” debate is interesting and very important. I would like to be able to take part in the discussion.
Promising to do my best to stay on point….freeyeshua.

Dr. Chopra, I would like to apologize on record to you and your audience for a comment that was too long and not on point. It was my first internet comment and a beginner’s mistake. It will not happen again. This “God Delusion” debate is interesting and very important. I would like to be able to take part in the discussion.
Promising to do my best to stay on point….freeyeshua.

Hi L
I do not disagee with what you say.
All I was trying to say was that one cannot prove existence of God and one is unlikely to do so. Dr.Chopra says he can prove the existence. I wonder. But like Dawkins I am not quite prepared to say God does not exist just because we cannot prove. May be existence of God could be proven only to those who experience personal realisation. And such realisation is only a subjective experience. When that happens and a part of brain lights up still will not prove anyhting because such lighting occurs with a number other feelings as you pointed out. I agree that the word God is being used loosely.

For those who are in search of God, it is the realisation and experience that is important. They could not care less whether you or I can prove the existence. It is all subjective. So may be it is delusion. But there is no other way.
Morris

"all-ways"

http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/

Deepak Chopra writes:-

"I have seen medical cures that science can't explain, some seemingly triggered by faith. The same is true of millions of other people."

Please provide examples for scrunity!

Hello Everyone,

Still going at it, I see.

L, quotes S. Weinberg,"Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal

See, Steven Weinberg actually knows, exactly, what God is, he just doesn't realize that he knows.

If you can't find God in a lump of coal, well, you ain't going to find God anywhere.

have a great day all..peace ruth

This is a great post to remember not to take some of this too seriously.

Deepak said "I know that I am conscious and have a self, even though Dawkins--along with many arch materialists--doesn't believe that consciousness is real or that the self is anything but a chemical illusion created in the brain."

I find this interesting: how is it (according to these materialists) that the self is a chemical illusion created in the brain, whereas everything else is real. Surely this idea is self defeating, after all, if our experience of the self is a neurochemical illusion, then so too is our experience of the world. Even if we are receiving stimulus through our senses, how can we know how much of our experience is created from this data and how much is created by neurochemical process, including things such as inside/outside the body, time, light etc. Dawkins, it must be remembered is not studying the world - he is studying a neuro chemically induced representation of the world - if science is correct that is! (I see an endless loop coming up!) I find it amazing that a blind process such as evolution could evolve a brain that creates an experience that *accurately* represents the world, without some intelligence and creativity to help it along?

Ref: Morris 213

"But like Dawkins I am not quite prepared to say God does not exist just because we cannot prove."

Morris,

Dawkins says nothing like that. Apart from that I understand what you say. Probably you might better appreciate what Dawkins says if not for the second hand subjective opinions directed towards his style.

Mr. Dawkins is a well read man when it comes to science but not necessarily so when it comes to religion. Due to his unawareness about various religious texts that have profound meaning he has made some very superficial, and pompous arguments. A lot is found in religion that if followed will bring about more peace, and progress.

His understanding of religion focuses on the many limitations that religions have propogated, just like what numerous news channel fill the world with - "The Religious Islamic Fundamentalists". While this part of the religion may be a different and an exclusive scenario, it is not right to be formed as a basis of criticizing religion in general.

Over the ages many of the religious texts have been doctored, however a lot in it has been scientifically analyzed to be true.

Mr. Chopra just like the learned Mr. Dawkins may not be a Mr. Know All, but it is important not to go all out and deride each other with the incomplete knowledge. However Mr. Chopra has had a significantly higher experience in reading various religious texts, beliefs and in understanding the context in which they are meant to be. Besides this Mr. Chopra has a specialization in the medical field that is purely born out of science so is well versed with the ways of scientific enquiry.

At the same time there have been numerous unexplained phenomenas. We are not able to even answer simple questions like how we came into existence. (The Big Bang is the best 'possible' explanation but no one is sure, science does not explain how a single cell takes the form of arms, legs etc, and the working of the human body (cant even think of producing skin in the labs, most of the body is still a miracle)- we just record and reproduce the observations and mistake it for scientific understanding of the complete process, also the numerous experiments on telepathy showed some amazing results as conducted by the Russians and the Americans and they do defy any known laws of physics).

When we realize that science, that has contributed in a big way to a comfortable life most of us have, is still at its early stages of development and discovery, it is foolish to say based on the pre-mature and partial knowledge that "God" is a delusion.

This might have been believed if science were at a stage that could explain the loads of biological, chemical, geographical, astronomical, etc wonders that it cannot today.

Till then there is something bigger, people call it God, that makes these wonders alive, that can be seen by a priest and a scientist but not understood or explained, forget about recreating it.