The Identity of God

...ultimate knowledge of existence cannot be obtained through the intellect nor the five senses.

How do you know that for sure? You can only say that statement is true for yourself. You can't apply your standards globally to everyone else.

Your statement is not my truth, I define myself by my own standards, not by other peoples.

Ahh, but he didn't say people must choose. He said he hates it when they don't choose. That's a different thing.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose. Orson Welles

I said that although the intellect cannot realize the ultimate truth of existence, it can lead one to the path. As I said, I’m an accountant but I have been a voracious reader since childhood. I continue my self-studies into such matters as an avocation. The basic paradigm of Indian metaphysics as exemplified by the Upanishads seems intellectually plausible to me (indeed, compelling) and rings true to me on an intuitive basis.

Unfortunately, I am far too old to embark on such an arduous path now. All I can do is take comfort in the philosophy. If it is true, then it is truth for you and all as well as me. You just haven’t come to the realization yet, if you ever do. Can I now state categorically that it is true? No.

Are you sure you don't want to tell us your IQ and income as well? (what I mean is: I don't care what anyone's credentials are, it's irrelevant.)

Here's what I believe

...BTW, I told you I was an accountant because in a previous post you seem to deride me as an intellectual.

Yeah, I think you're right. That thought process will definitely lead you there though.

I don't know how you make that connection. I believe in god without religion and because I do not know god's identity doesn't mean I am going to be lead down the road of non-belief since I never had any religious influence of any kind, I never had any proof

Every internet discussion of religion turns into the battle of dead philosophers, which I find a bore.

Thomas Aquinas vs Friedrich Nietzsche would make for a fun Celebrity Death Match

I don't think you misunderstood stood me and I also don't think you are 100% wrong, but I do think you are mischaracterizing what I mean a bit. Doubt isn't inherently bad, and I wouldn't call it a weakness. Although how we engage with our doubt can be both those things. I am going to talk about faith now because I think it applies. Christians are taught that faith is the evidence of things not seen. Now some just take that verse and use it to stand firmly in their dogma. I don't necessarily want to belittle those people but I do think that type of thing needs to be pushed back against because it makes you ineffective against disbelief. Evidence can be a tricky thing especially coming at it from a spiritual perspective. Christ told me to love unconditionally, but why? Well if I practice unconditional love and I find that it makes the people in my life love more openly and makes me a more effective person I have some evidence that that particular tenet of my faith is real and valuable.

Obviously that is a very elementary example but I think the analogy works for what I am trying to say. You often hear non-believers bemoan Christianity because they view it as a religion based on a list of arbitrary rules. I strongly believe that's our Christian cultures fault because we work backwards. We want the non-believer to follow Christ's example and then they will understand why he gave us those moral absolutes. I believe that if we live out those absolutes non-believers will see the evidence of the benefits of Christian living. Most people want to know why they are following what they are. We try to train adults like children, that mostly isn't effective.

Maybe I rambled, but I hope that explains my position a bit better and keeps the conversation going.

I totally understand and respect that, but for me what you are describing is absolutely possible without faith or religion. Furthermore, why would the words of Christ (in the new testament I suppose) have any more weight than any other thinkers over the ages. Lots of philosophers elaborated a moral, personally I am inclined to be more of a consequentialist and I find that it helped my life greatly. However, I don't see how I could derive from the fact that I adopted a particular morality and that it helped my life, that this particular morality is holy, or has a particular status. I can say that the arguments it presents are, I think better for X, Y or Z reasons, but I don't see anything more.

In other words, from what I understand you seem to say that ''Christ told you to love unconditionally'' (from the new testament as I said) and that you applied that to your life and that it made it better. How is that sufficient to give you metaphysical beliefs? I mean, couldn't you just see christian moral as a great moral without believing in the rest? For me at least for believing in the rest I'd need to have some good reasons which I'm sure you have, but you didn't tell them.

I'll also answer to Cobpyth and the accountant guy who talks about mysticism later today haha.

You can't remove faith from religion, otherwise it becomes a following of soulless droids.

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” - John 20:29

well you know more than me mate.

What does this mean? Sorry i missed this. Either you are mocking me or something else, the idea of both is really depressing. I think people should read my post and forget about it four seconds later, i was definitely not trying to say anything interesting with it.

I was mocking you... or whatever.