Dear Banjo,

Apple dictionary (New Oxford American/British Oxford) with the two meanings of “nothing”:
NOTHING
pronoun
not anything; no single thing: I said nothing | there's nothing you can do | they found nothing wrong.

(None of the three examples refers to “objects”.)

I think you just confirmed that you did not understand the question “why there is something rather than nothing” asked by philosophers (e.g. Leibniz).

I also think that whoever does “research relating to the existence or non-existence of God” is neither a scientist nor a philosopher but a person with a childish understanding of God. [Similarly as in: physicists do not do research relating to the existence or non-existence of gravitation, they look for theories (Newtonian, Einsteinian, etc models) to explain (and predict) its effects on matter.]

You can seek, ignore, deny God in your life, but you cannot do (scienific) research on His existence.

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Dear Not_Now.Soon,

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I apologise for not getting back to you earlier. Still, better late than never, I suppose. Here is my response to your long post on page 14 of this thread :

You wrote :

« I'm glad you recognize that I can call God, ,God." Instead of hypothetical or anything else. But I get the impression you'd rather I go with the other term »

No, Not_Now.Soon, as I indicated in a previous post, I respect your religious beliefs and am happy for you to continue to refer simply to “God”. But as I do not share your beliefs I trust you will be kind enough to reciprocate and accept that I continue to refer to the “hypothetical God” in which you believe.

« … my current hypothesis … isn't about God but about people … they don't seek Him … or they do and they find Him »

I grew up in a bush town in the Queensland outback. The only people I could have an intelligent conversation with were young ministers (priests) of the Bush Brotherhood. I spent long hours late in the evenings discussing theology and philosophy with them. I was christened and confirmed in the Church of England (Anglican Church) and I served for many years as an altar boy. Two of them became my best friends. One died in a car accident and the other one is still one of my best friends. He was my religious instruction teacher at primary school. He later became the Archbishop of Melbourne and served for ten years as the primate of the Anglican Church in Australia. He is now retired but retains the title of bishop and lives in Adelaide. As I live in Paris, we continue to communicate by e-mail.

I have known him since I was ten years old. At the age of fifteen I had still not decided whether I should believe in God or not, but no longer had time to consecrate to the question. I decided to leave it in abeyance until I did.

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That time came 44 years later. I took up my research once again and in a little less than a year, finally managed to understand how the concept of God became deeply ingrained in the mind of primeval man, germinating, developing, constantly evolving and adapting to the vision and culture of an increasingly civilised and knowledgeable society.

It was a long process, spanning the best part of half a century but the final realisation came to me with such force and clarity that it surprised me. I felt a surge of exhilaration that I had never felt in my life before. I experienced what I can only describe as a revelation.

All these years I had more or less expected that at the end of my research, I would, as you say, eventually “find God”. Instead, I found exactly the contrary.

It is now crystal clear to me that God is no more than a simple hypothesis, until proven otherwise – but my mind remains open.

It does not prevent my good friend, the retired bishop in Adelaide, and myself from continuing to debate matters of religion as usual – though he probably would have liked me to follow in his footsteps.

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Dear George,

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Thanks for your response, but it's getting late. I think I'll go to bed and try to get back to you tomorrow.

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Dear Banjo,

«I consider that there is no God until “proven” otherwise – which I don’t rule out.»

Funny. So at the moment there is no God (yet), but possibly in future someone may "prove" God and then they would have created God...
Unlike you, I do rule out the possibility of that happening!

«I reject the appellation “atheist” because I think it’s silly (if not stupid) defining myself by reference to something that I consider does not exist.»

I think it's silly to attempt the impossible task of defining oneself, but rather, we were just playing with OED definitions and trying to match our person with them. That being the case, silly as that game may be, my person matches the "atheist" definition while yours matches the "agnostic" definition.


«That’s not the commonly accepted definition of existence Yuyutsu.»

By the OED, 'existence'="The fact or state of living or having objective reality".

Whatever has an objective reality, must be an object!

God is not an object, has no objective reality, does not exist and will never be proven to exist.

Sorry to spoil you revelation, but this means that God is not an hypothesis either, because God does not exist while hypotheses do.

«They run out onto the street without looking back and never return. They live the rest of their lives peacefully and, one by one, die of old age – never realising it was only a kitten.»

Outside in the yard was only a kitten, but inside was the lion, so as they ran out onto the street, the lion was now roaming about. They tried to run away, but no matter where they went, they could not escape the lion because, without realising it, THEY WERE the lion!

To Banjo. I have to have some more time to read the full articles you referenced from Sam Harris. But if you can say which points in the articles that you liked or are drawn to that might help also.

Thank you for sharing your experience with searching for God. That is something for me to consider, but I don't understand why I could find Him and you could not.

For me my experience searching for God starts as a kid. More then once there was a confirmation that God exists by a reaction to a prayer. A few even as a reaction that He cares for me. As I grew up, there were a few more things that happened and I felt like we had a relationship of some sort or another. Like God was a friend. (Something I neglected probably too often, but I was a kid). Then later as a young adult I had a breakup that tore me apart. I distanced myself from everyone. Friends, parents, God. Anything that I thought was worth protecting, I distanced myself from, because I wasn't getting over the break up and I didn't want them to distance themselves from me because of that. With God, I distanced myself because I lost hope, prayed and got encouraged then lost hope even more.

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I stopped trying to find hope only to lose it and just deal with the storm inside of me. That was a mistake I'm sure. But it did stop me from trying to chase dreams of winning the girl back any time I felt better. After I got through that though, I worried if I lost my relationship with God. I spent a little time trying to reconnect with God. Through study, through prayer, through trying to understand differing Christian perspectives in hopes they held an answer. It wasn't a constant search but it was ongoing. Eventually, after a few years (2 or 3) I got a feeling I hadn't had for a long time in response to a prayer. It was a meaningful moment for me. He still listens and I'm not lost because of a hardship I blew out of proportion. I still worry I lost something I had as a kid and as a teen with my closeness to God. But I'm not worried anymore that I lost Him.

Based on these experiences there's a few hypotheses I wonder about. One is if it's harder to find God as an adult then it is to find Him as a child. If that's true then maybe it's because of distractions of life. Work, fun, family and friends, and trying to juggle all of that and any other worries. Or maybe it's that we're already exposed to differing philosophies that keep us from sincerely looking for God, or from following His teachings. A second consideration is thinking that our neglect from following Him might get in the way of finding Him, regardless of being a child or an adult. (Though I don't think this is as strong a likelihood anymore. While looking into it though I've tried to look at teachings and put them into a practical understanding so they are practiced instead of just known).

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