To atheists and agnostics

Did anything ever happen to you that couldn't be explained no matter how hard you try, yet you don't believe in "God?" If it did, then how do you think it happened?

I know there will be jokes, but I'm seriously asking.

Sometimes, but in my life I've had two things happen that aren't in the category of happenstance.

Let me clarify. Somethig happened to me a couple of months ago that isn't happenstance. One day I woke up and was thinking an entirely different way about a particular subject and it changed my life. And it wasn't like I was trying to think that way.

Well, anyway, I have to start believing something's out there.

Updated On: 5/31/15 at 04:23 PM

I'm here Jane and I'm a Met fan.

Well, I understand the "happenstance" type of things. Like you were about to be hit by a car, but you weren't, etc.

But who or what went into my brain and erased things that I lived my whole life with, and added different things?

yes, South Florida, we won today!

if you say there is a god running the show that concerns itself with you, then there is a god running the show that concerns itself with you. you can't just turn it on when good things happen to you, and turn it off when it doesn't suit you anymore.

if we say there is a god running the show and concerns itself with human beings, then yes, we have to admit, in some sense, this god must have wanted to allow beau biden to have brain cancer, let it be treated, then let it ultimately kill him and let his father grieve over him. this is an extraordinarily evil way of thinking and talking. and we have to admit that, for the better part of human existence, this IS the way people under religion thought. it is also worth condemning on this board, precisely BECAUSE thousands of people in the 80s-90s thought that HIV was a judgment from the divine for immoral behavior, and thousands died as a result.

now let us make the opposite assumption and say there is no such thing. all questions immediately evaporate. as mammals, we are subject to the laws of biology and evolution. when the molecular machinery responsible for programmed cell death occurs, you get uncontrolled proliferation of immature cells. hence, cancer. when this occurs in the central nervous system, you get brain cancer. this process doesn't know that joe biden loves beau. it doesn't know that beau is a father and a husband and a son. it doesn't care that he's here, won't care if he leaves.

and people who want to be serious better learn to have this conversation. current data is that 1 in 2 of us will have to deal with cancer in our lifetimes. the second scenario, by the way, is also the only game in town when it comes to finding a solution for cancer, which it has, with say, hodgkin's lymphoma.

it's just semantics. you are saying that for either good or ill, the universe is concerning itself with you.

we will never be able to disprove deism in our lifetimes. we can only say that everything works without the assumption of a prime mover. we could be in the matrix. we could be computer simulation created by future christians to see if their religion is true. we could be the dream of a giant cosmic turtle. all those are "something", and i can't disprove any of these scenarios. i can only say that everything that happens to us in our day to day lives works without those assumptions.

It sounds like you had a Eureka Moment, Jane. It's not unusual for people to get away from something that has bogged down and made them feel stuck and to suddenly have an alternative way of looking at things pop into their heads. The brain is complex and capable of remarkable things.

Well, not exactly^. I'll try to post an analogy, for fear that if I say what really happened, it will seem trivial to others.

Ok, let's say for instance, you've always been attracted to a certain type of guy (if you're a straight girl like me). Let's say you liked blond, pretty boy looks, brooding personality, kind of thin, artistic. All your life. You wake up one day and those attributes don't appeal to you. You don't even enjoy thinking about them. You now crave dark, pudgy, businessman types.

Of course this is nothing like what happened to me. And I know there are a million jokes you gay guys can make! But, I hope I made it kind of clear.

That was a reeeeeally bad analogy, Theater fan, my fault. That analogy was so lame.I get what you're saying and you're right about what you said. It's obvious.

Never mind, everyone. I'll never figure it out.

but, I did visit Heaven one time!

Yes, they are, SNAFU. That's one of the reasons I never make a decision at night.

Jane, I spent three years in an Ashram meditating. They taught that the reason for the meditation was to become closer to the "I" behind the I. Freud might classify it as the the Id? In Yoga it is that devine blue spark that every living thing possesses. It is that Blue Spark of life that we retreat to when we are in peril... "It was as if I were watching the event from a far.". I had it once in the 70's when I was held up in my apartment at gunpoint. Might also be the resoning for what is seen during near death experiences. The Blue Spark is energy, maybe a part of Jung's Collected Unconscious? These "A HA!" moments might very well come from there.

Wow SNAFU. You've had some experiences, that's for sure.I guess the bottom line here is there are some things we'll never know. Like we'll never know how it all started, another thing on my mind a lot.

Have you learned a lot from that meditation at the Ashram?

I know you're giving me good advice. My problem is the need to analyze everything. It's a virgo trait.

Thanks!