Why do people believe in god?

God exist or not how to conclude?So long as we are anything less than creator we can not feel him .Even if we feel him it will only be the part not whole.if we want to know God we have to become God.is there anyway to become God?

 

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Yes, I think it correct to assume that experience is a function of brain activity mainly because all experience can be terminated with anesthesia or greatly modified by drugs known to bind the cites in the brain, preventing the normal neuro-transmitters from binding there - I.e. drugs acting on brain cells can either completely abolish all experience (and consciousness) or greatly modify experience and consciousness.

If I also accept your idea that God is consciousness or at least a part of it, then this and the first made agreement means God does have a material nature as part of brain. Hence, if virus killed all conscious being at least that material part of God is abolished too. That however leaves open the question about God having some non-material “spiritual” existence also as most theists assert. – It is still unclear where you stand on this. Does the consciousness abolishing virus completely kill God too? Or dose his non-material “spiritual” part persist? Perhaps to watch over ETs on other planets or even be material in their “brains”

BTW I reminded you of what I consider the most likely reason consciousness evolved** – To serve as a filter or inhibiting check on decisions that were made prior to your consciousness being informed of the decision. (Recall my link* showing experimental proof that decisions are made without conscious participation and then even more than a second passes in some cases before consciousness is informed of the decision, but of course everyone thinks they consciously make the decisions.)

In the sense that conscious consideration of the probable consequence of implementing the already made decision in action, does give consciousness a role to play in choosing what we actually do. I.e. consciousness can veto the action decided upon prior to conscious being made aware of the decision. This ability of consciousness to be able to block actions, based on thoughtful consideration of their probable adverse consequences, has huge survival value – IMHO, Why consciousness evolved. Conscious creatures had much higher probably of living long enough to reproduce than those that simply acted on their instinct and desires without review of the likely consequences.

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* See: thread "Free will, Ha! you will be the last to know." at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2227485&postcount=1

** Interestingly, with your POV (God is consciousness), God is product of evolution as at earlier evolution stages nothing was conscious.

 

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Since I can only ponder the existence of consciousness if I'm conscious, the only conclusion I seem to be able to reach if I consciously ponder the non-existence of consciousness is that the question is paradoxical.

What would the universe look like if conscious beings weren't around to observe it?
Have you read any Spinoza and what do you think of his "universal mind"?

That isn't all that surprising given that consciousness evolved as the brain became more complex, so our distant animal ancestors didn't have it, and so parts of our brain still function in the same way theirs did, and they would have had to make decisions.
So we still have functioning "lizard" brains in there somewhere amongst our updated brain anatomy.

 

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No sorry

 

See some objections to Libet's experiment here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2794519

 

Libet's experiment isn't even needed, for it obviously takes some time for the neurons to go through their paces during brain analysis to get to a result by collapsing scenarios of consequences.

 

Yes, some minor objections have been raised to Libet's early studies (<1980) but he started a still continuing line of research, by dozens of scientists, that clearly demonstrates our conscious mind is often several seconds delayed in learning the decision that was already made and can be observed in recorded brain activity earlier. My quote at start of the link (copy below) is not of Libet's 35 year old pioneering work but taken from a review of the field published by The Economist in 2009, vol. 10.

"... The electrical activity of the volunteer’s brain (his brainwave pattern, in common parlance) was recorded by the EEG from the button’s press. Each volunteer was given 30 seconds to read the puzzle and another 60 to 90 seconds to solve it. ... Some people worked it out; others did not. The significant point, though, was that the EEG predicted who would fall where. ... Moreover, the difference was noticeable up to eight seconds before the volunteer realised he had found the solution. Dr Sheth thinks this may be capturing the “transformational thought” (the light-bulb moment, as it were) in action, before the brain’s “owner” is consciously aware of it….”

In fact it is easy to show (as Freud long ago suggested) that humans rarely know the true reason why they do what they do, make the choices that they make, etc. What happens is we consciously see what we do and then FABRICATE a plausible reason why we did that or made that choice. Here is one demonstration of that fabrication in action:

Sarah is hypnotized and told to take off her shoes when a book drops on the floor. Fifteen minutes later a book drops, and Sarah quietly slips out of her loafers. "Sarah," asks the hypnotist, "why did you take off your shoes?" "Well... my feet are hot and tired," Sarah replies. "It's been a long day." From: "Social Psychology" by David Myers (1999)

In this case everyone else in the room knows the real reason Sarah took off her shoes. There are thousands of similar examples. Really, there is very little reason to think that we decide anything ONLY by conscious thought except analytic decisions, such as: "Are two small boxes of X, now on sale, actually a better buy than the big "economy box" at the regular price?"

IMHO, the function of consciousness, and its great survival value, is to block the actual execution of already decided actions when conscious consideration of their probable or possible consequences indicates that action may be quite undesirable.

If interested here is a good discussion of this whole area with emphasis on its implications for “free will”: http://www.humantruth.info/free_will.html

This objection is very weak as the author is ignoring all the evidence that shows our choices are not solely made consciously. More serious objections to Libet's methodology have been raised and later research has been designed to avoid them.

 

Interesting, I would have said instead of schizophrenia, hallucinations
and instead of nuclear physicists, something like bosons.
But actually those answers are perfect. It does take a special group - psychiatrists - to identify schizophrenia, a rather vague non-tangible something.
And I am not qualified to identify nuclear physicists, though I might be able to eliminate some bluffers.

 

Wrong to become like God all thee need is faith. To become like God requires knowledge of God, knowledge of God requires great faith. I know God.

 

It's a good job grammar isn't a requirement.

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Wild guess.

Faith isn't knowledge.

No you don't.

 

I look at it this way . . .

 

That may be a function of consciousness, but it does seem a little restrictive.
Consciousness may have evolved for other reasons that we haven't determined.

A question we can ask is: why are there conscious observers in the universe, who have the ability develop theories about their observer status?

For instance (looking at some prosaic but still interesting points), why is the moon's apparent diameter just large enough that it eclipses the sun completely? Why are we in a region of the galaxy that occludes the galactic centre, which allows us to observe distant astronomical objects? (these would look much too faint if the centre of the galaxy was visible).

Or, in general, why do we appear to occupy a position in space that gives us a "useful" view, rather than something else?

 

Yes, because it's such a good thing to believe we do not have free will!

 

I really don't know what to say when it comes to these debates, but I'll share what other theists told (although, I'm atheist, but vast majority of time I keep my mouth shut):
They say God=energy (because energy can't be destroyed/created. They don't say that God is an entity rather they say he is energy in all of its forms.
I really can't understand this at all what do they mean by that.
What do you think?

My hypothesis and answer comes from what I know from physics. The basic and the most fundamental thing in physics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed from one form of energy into another form of energy. Now since everything that exists represents form of energy (even space and time, dimensions and etc...), God also must be the form of energy, which again means, God is not eternal, God can't be eternal, because as a form of energy God will transform into some other dead-unusable form of energy.
No form of energy lasts forever.
And God can't be infinite or omnipotent, otherwise God would have truly infinite amounts of energy, and there is no infinite amount of energy you can generate, everything is finite even the universe itself.

The other thing they say that universe is the living entity. I really don't know what to say about this, there is not even a single indication that universe is an entity at all. However, there are both life and death processes present.
What do you think?
Does this make any sense at all.

 

can't know God if you don't study him.

 

How to study god?

 

If we are the God who have lost his mind in his own creation .. .

 

... then you have a universe where illusion is god

 

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. If you don't know him, then why are you studying him?

 

read the book..question believers..