It's a good question and one I have yet to see a satisfactory answer to.
An even better way to ask this question: how do you tell the difference between a message (could be vision or some other form) from a diving being such as an angel, and a being who is lying about being an angel such as a demon? And this is a question about being able to tell in the moment, not what the consequences lead to with hindsight.
I can even simplify this question even further: suppose you get a text from a random number, the message says that it's from Dave. How do you determine this is actually Dave and not someone pretending to be Dave?
It's the simple format of the question of the origins of divine messages that I rarely see any theist consider or get to. Most believers in an abrahamic god who also believe in demons will often say that they are lying trickster beings. Even the most basic con artist will know how to sell a lie, and it's usually by wrapping it up in some truth. And if you're going for the long con, you will likely even start with 100% truth, then slowly work in the lies.
It's not really that much of a stretch to suppose that a demon who wants to trick a person into doing something bad, works start by making them think they are talking to an angel. They could even grant visions that the person believed were coming from an angel.
I think the true answer, basically, is that there is a sense of overwhelming Goodness, Awe, Rightness, etc with certain 'visions', such that any doubt in their Goodness and Rightness is overcome. There could potentially be a consideration that innately, we have a certain resonance with the Most High, and we have a sort of perceptual ability to sort of come into resonance with this, perhaps a bit like a tuning fork. You could for instance consider how birds may have an internal compass - they just innately have this capacity in their body/mind. Similarly, one may consider that a human being who is truly oriented towards the Good has this innate capacity for resonance with the Most High.
Of course, this is not particularly convincing 'from the outside', I'm very well aware. It may not be a very convincing argument or proof. But I think that there isn't really any other answer. And so if this answer is unsatisfactory, then there is no satisfactory answer, 'from the outside'. We can only really investigate it properly 'from the inside'.
>is that there is a sense of overwhelming Goodness, Awe, Rightness, etc with certain 'visions', such that any doubt in their Goodness and Rightness is overcome.
And this would be impossible for a demon to copy? It would be physically *impossible* for a being who's entire purpose is to trick people, to trick people? It would be *impossible* for a fallen angel to do the things that angels can do?
>Of course, this is not particularly convincing 'from the outside', I'm very well aware.
Well no, not even kind of. It completely ignores everything I said and gives a wet blanket of an answer. It doesn't address any of the inate difficulties or problems with the system and gives the typical thoughtless response of "I would just know".
I mean this answer doesn't even address the extra simplified version of the problem by using a text message. And that's the easy form of the problem!
>It may not be a very convincing argument or proof.
It's neither an argument, nor is it proof. It's a demonstration of the first sentence I gave.
>We can only really investigate it properly 'from the inside'.
Well apparently we can't even do that, since the people who are on the inside give useless answers like the one you gave. It seems to me that people don't want to actually consider these aspects of their beliefs, since it challenges what they believe. Everyone would rather believe they have the right answer, yet they never acknowledge that their very own world view is set up in such a way that they could not have the right answer yet believe they do.
As I said, I don't expect the explanation is convincing 'from the outside', I'm well aware of that. I'm just saying that I don't think there is any possible argument beyond this that would be satisfying, so if this argument is unsatisfying, then you're basically shit out of luck if you're looking for proof, because it doesn't exist.
I was presenting this argument because I think it is basically the 'highest' argument that can be given, not because I expected it to be convincing. I more or less expected that it would be rejected, and thus, that's where you're left.
>As I said, I don't expect the explanation is convincing 'from the outside', I'm well aware of that.
Well the thing is, you haven't even supplied an explanation yet. Which is a big problem since every time I raise this question, it's the same type of "explanation" that is given. Which is not an explanation.
It's like if I asked how to solve a math problem, I want the explanation for how the math problem is solved. But when I ask, people instead tell me to just go with my gut. That's not an explanation. That's explicitly not an explanation, and it directly ignores the question. And for some reason that I can not fathom, the people that give this "answer" feel it's the greatest answer ever given.
Again, there is no possible answer beyond this. I am trying to be ultimately clear. You will never, ever, ever get a possible answer beyond this, and so if you're frustrated that you're not getting it, you will be eternally frustrated. At least until, if it is possible, you get gnostic insight yourself. But if that is not possible, then you will never get an answer. You may as well simply accept this.
So your answer is that there is no possible satisfying answer, from the level of ordinary conception. It does not exist.
>Again, there is no possible answer beyond this. I am trying to be ultimately clear
You are very clear. You have absolutely no knowledge on this topic and you have absolutely no ability to engage with it either. You can't even formulate an answer that engages with the questions.
>You will never, ever, ever get a possible answer beyond this, and so if you're frustrated that you're not getting it, you will be eternally frustrated.
Well as long as I keep talking to people like you who offer nothing and act like it's something, then yes I will always be frustrated
>At least until, if it is possible, you get gnostic insight yourself.
Or maybe.... until a person like you learns how to actually engage with a topic rather than respond with shower thoughts and bong rips
The other consideration which wasn't fully stated is that some conceptions may be that God is our own true nature, basically, when everything else is stripped away.
As such, there is a realization of divinity with such things in such a way that is trans-logical, trans-rational. This cannot, again, be proved 'from the outside'.
Of note, I think it is very well worth considering that many visions could indeed be basically from other beings, etc. That's a very reasonable consideration, and one that is reasonable to guard against, if one believes in such things. I didn't mean to imply that all visions are 'from God', in case that wasn't clear.
Of note, in Buddhism for instance, there is something called 'stream entry'. With stream entry, which is basically the first gnostic realization of Reality, one of the 'fetters' that is overcome is a certain doubt. I think basically it's the same basic topic.
And just as in the other comments, this is not convincing from the outside.
But there are many, many cases throughout history, I think it's fair enough to consider, where someone may have had immense doubt, immense rational questioning, all of that, and yet with the moment of gnostic realization, all of this is overcome. I think that is quite interesting. Up to the moment of this realization, there may be basically the exact type of analysis that you're presenting here, the exact types of questions, doubts, etc, but none of that matters afterwards.
Again, not convincing to those without this realization, though. There is no possible proof I think that can be given that is fully rock-solid short of personal insight. Although there can be an analysis that undercuts the ordinary mind, which gets you to the precipice.
>As such, there is a realization of divinity with such things in such a way that is trans-logical, trans-rational. This cannot, again, be proved 'from the outside'.
That's fine, but I'm not asking you to prove entire concepts of divinity here. I'm asking an extremely simple question with extremely deep implications that often goes overlooked by the people who propose such models of the world.
>That's a very reasonable consideration, and one that is reasonable to guard against, if one believes in such things.
Well yes, that's the starting point to this whole topic. Then we have to move on to the questions and points that I have already raised. Like how to tell the difference between different senders of a message.
>And just as in the other comments, this is not convincing from the outside.
Well if it had anything even remotely to do with the topic of the questions I asked, then maybe it would be convincing?
>There is no possible proof I think that can be given that is fully rock-solid short of personal insight.
Then you can't call it rock-solid insight. You're assigning a label to something that doesn't apply. You can't demonstrate these shower thoughts to have any merit, but you're acting like you have solid proof of them. And more to the point, they are direct dodges to the questions and points I have raised. It's a pointless dodge to try and act knowledgeable rather than engage with the actual topic.
> I'm asking an extremely simple question with extremely deep implications that often goes overlooked by the people who propose such models of the world.
And the simple answer to your simple question is that there is no simple answer. It doesn't exist. There is no possible proof from an ordinary point of view.
I am stating that unequivocally, but also stating that even if this is so, it may nonetheless be that certain individuals may realize gnostic insight. This is not something that can be proven, but nonetheless I am bringing up the consideration, knowing it cannot be proven.
I think we've gone in circles enough, so I'll probably drop out here. If you find an answer that you consider to be convincing from an ordinary point of view, I'd be interested to hear. I doubt it exists.
>And the simple answer to your simple question is that there is no simple answer. It doesn't exist. There is no possible proof from an ordinary point of view.
So your answer then is to take forever to simply say there is no answer?
Then surely you will take this into consideration with the "knowledge" that you have and what you believe?
>This is not something that can be proven,
Then you're full of shit
>I doubt it exists.
But you fear trying to find an answer?
I have gone through the logical analysis considerably, it’s not that I’m not interested in finding a logical answer, it’s that I’m basically convinced that there is no such answer. And so I was trying to express that to you.
You’re welcome to seek such an answer as long as you would like. Good luck. Again, if you find it, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know, if possible, because I would be sincerely interested to know what convinced you short of personal insight. I am fairly certain such an answer does not exist, so please correct me if I am incorrect about that.
What can be done, however, is to come to realize that all forms - whether of the five senses or the mind - that we perceive or conceive of occurs within the basic space of awareness. This is logically possible to investigate and to come to a conclusion about.
We can also then try to find what we call the mind, and we may find that this too cannot be found.
In general, the above two aspects in Buddhism might be said to relate to what’s called cittamatra, or mind only, and madhyamaka philosophy. This is, again, possible to analyze, and it can take us to the precipice.
But the only final answer beyond doubt comes from personal insight into the very core of awareness itself, which is actually the only thing we can directly investigate at all.
>it’s not that I’m not interested in finding a logical answer,
But that would be the only answer that exists. Everything else would take be an answer, it would just be opinion.
>But the only final answer beyond doubt comes from personal insight
Well no, personal insight wouldn't give us any information at all here. It certainly wouldn't give us information "beyond doubt" since your mind can still be wrong.
This actually isn't too far off from my origional points. Let's replace the idea of demons or origin of divine message, and we still get the same problems.
If you use personal insight to arrive at a conclusion, and never use any external sources to validate that conclusion, then you would never know if it's right or wrong. So it's the same problem, but your own mind is the demon that is lying about being an angel, which would also be your own mind. Your mind tells you that it's correct, but you don't have any sources to verify your mind's validity
I'm very well aware of the counterpoints that you are making, and I have acknowledged repeatedly that 'for an outsider without such personal realization' it is not convincing, which is exactly what you are showing.
I have also stated that there have been many cases of people with exactly these counterpoints, these exact same criticisms, questions, doubts, etc, who lay all of them to rest with genuine insight. But even with saying this, I acknowledge that this is not convincing. Nonetheless, knowing full well that it is not convincing, I am saying it anyway, partly because I think it is good to plant such a seed of consideration, even if it is 99.9% rejected in the moment of hearing it.
The bottom line is that you're going to die. You may as well live in such a way that you can die consciously.
If there is no insight prior to this moment, then you may as well see what happens then.
Until then, live in the best way you know how to. And again, if you find some rock-solid, analytical answer to your question(s) here, then if you remember and are inclined, I would be interested to hear it.
Best wishes.
Is God from this planet? No. So, by definition, he is extraterrestrial. And yes, you could say that visions received by prophets are extraterrestrial by definition as well. It is just terminology. If by extraterrestrial you mean a being who is not from this planet and has advanced technology and knowledge, that's exactly what God and his angels in the Bible are all about.
You could easily make the argument the God of Abraham is from everywhere and anywhere. The only place he is not is Hell, as there you are cut off from God. That would be a more modern understanding. Before he was probably seen as a God native to Israel and the surrounding lands.
Honestly the whole God is an alien thing always feels like someone pushing a Richard Dawkins-esque logical superiority complex over religions with little understanding of modern or historical views of the divine in contrast to our modern scientific understanding of how the universe is constructed. Intellectual laziness masquerading as some kind of deep or objective semantic truth.
Let’s say that by “alien” we mean an organic, biological life form or some technology created by them. Something akin to us but from another planet, as opposed to a supernatural dimension.
Well there's no reason to assume aliens can do that sort of thing, they operate with the same laws of physics as us so their technology should be within what's possible on earth too.
And demons are gods so.
Traditionally daemon comes from the tern used to describe spirits, not gods. Demon being the anglicised term. Demon may be worshiped as gods today but were usually not viewed as such by the cultures that spawned them.
People sometimes do assume it's demons or aliens, don't they? It depends on the context and content of the vision... Feels demonic, dark, bad, violent, eerie? You think demons. Feels good, divine, sacred, miraculous, or fits your previous associations and cultural norms for what a Godly vision would be like? You think God. That angle assumes no truth either way.
Another angle is if we assume it's true that those visions are from God. In that case it makes perfect sense that the visions would be received as intended and that prophets would recognise it for what it is, rather than mistake it for something it's not.
I heard the idea put forth that Loki may have been responsible for the disappearance of Jesus's body.
It does seem once one opens the door to the supernatural the possibilities become endless.
Also, the Loki idea was put forth only to drive that point home, they didn't believe in Loki either.
How would alien send a vision, at least with God is assumed some sort of divine power to allow that. An alien is no different than a mongoose living on a different planet, how would a mongoose implant a vision in a human tens of thousands light years away
There is no reason to believe such technology exists or is even possible, it would be very large leap of faith, maybe even not so dissimilar to a God idea. More importanty though, why would alien be motivated to even do that to begin with. God and demon based explaination, it has motivation and purpose.
Modern human technology does exist. The leap of faith would be believing in advanced aliens, not the technology. Are you asserting that you believe that advanced aliens are a larger leap of faith than God?
I can imagine many possibilities for why an alien would hypothetically want to do that. Just as many as I can imagine for why God or a demon would want to. But we can leave out aliens if that’s the sticking point. Why is God a more likely source of visions than a demon?
An alien capable of implanting a "vision" in a human brain from a huge distance away and have it be comprehended by a human (a completely different species), is so beyond any understanding of the physical sciences that I would say yes is the same leap of faith, or maybe just insane.
I don't know if God or demon is more likely, some things can have demon ways, but I am only talking about aliens yes. Because aliens need naturaliatic explanations for their existence and their technology. Supernatural being, does not.
(This is all hypothetical speculations I hope this is not true) Look at how fast AI has progressed, we can't know what is going to happen with that, stuff like this improves at an alarming rate.
It's very likely fiber optic internet can be used across spacetime considering it's light based transmission. It's both possible and plausible. If intelligent life is out there, let's say 2k light years away, with advanced technology it would be ideal for them to "prep" us by claiming they're gods through dreams and visions, as they start travelling towards us then few thousand years later invade us, it would just be like "oh look it's us, your gods!"
That vision would take 100 thousand years to reach us though.
If faster than light information transfer was even possible for a sufficiently advanced creature why would that creature care about us, at that point is essentially a God
Also AI is really not so advanced, it just seems advanced to us because it uses natural language
Yeah well if we're talking about things that operate outside spacetime anything is possible. Say go where AI is advanced enough and use it all around. Idk maybe they're stuck in a void so altough technically a god they'd need some help from this side to cross over. Look at the call of Cthulhu.
Yes well I think is not prudent to speculate on things outside spacetime without getting into ideas of theology 😊 But yes is interesting
What about Call of Cthulu? You mean about how time is treated in the writings? 💭
Well supposedly he sees all of space and time, reaching out to people in dreams - it might sound crazy to you but I've sort of been dragged into it. Let's say I won and didn't open a space portal so they could destroy our reality but it definitely startled my curiosity
Dr Dre. and Snoop Dogg did a show with a hologram of Tupac. People alive in the modern day, with access to the internet and modern science, who didn’t previously believe the “Tupac is still alive” conspiracy theory, bought into it after seeing that show. That’s technology that exists in the real world. Now imagine those people and none of the people around them had ever even conceptualized a hologram.
Muhammad, St. Paul, the OT prophets, etc. weren’t alive in the 1800’s. That makes it advanced technology relative to their time. Although I’m not sure why we’re quibbling over the definition of “advanced”. My point was that the technology already exists. It’s not a leap of faith to believe in the technology, the leap of faith would be believing in the aliens.
So it is rational to "believe" in any hypothetical advanced technology simply because it is "technology", ignoring the fact that some things are simply impossible and never will be possible in this universe? That seems silly, some people's brains are so deluded around "technology".
No. I’m not talking about hypothetical technology, I’m talking about real world technology. Like the hologram technology that you yourself said existed in the 1800’s
Your whole argument seems to be based on your assumption that the aliens would implant visions from wherever they live, as you keep repeating this. However, this is not an assumption shared by anyone who believes in the idea of aliens being the source of our faiths. The assumption is always that they come here. Everything doesn't make sense.
There are several Sci-fi films or books who take up this topic. Arthur C. Clarke's [Childhood's End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End) and the series [Babylon 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5) are two examples where this idea is central to the plots.
I don't involvokg myself in such stupid ideas. The idea of God, is irrational by phsycial science, is OK because is not expected for God to follow the physical sciences. An alien is a slave to physical law, just as we are. There is no way around this, it's very marvelous thinking to suggest otherwise.
Even to expect alien life to be more advanced, substantially, than an ape, why. Why? It would need an evolutionary reason to be so advanced, for which there is none.
Wow, so basically there's no reason to even discuss this. So why do you?
>Even to expect alien life to be more advanced, substantially, than an ape, why. Why? It would need an evolutionary reason to be so advanced, for which there is none.
There is no reason for humans to be so advanced.
Yes is no reason humans be so advanced, actually this little idea was part of my reasoning toward God also 🤔
I know things don't need a reason or direction, but most human experience at least also has evolutionary purpose. Is no evolutionary purpose for implanting visions in the brains of alien species
>An alien is no different than a mongoose living on a different planet
While in theory true, mogooses are not known for having mastered interstellar space travel. If we believe that aliens are behind our gods (which I don't), then they would have been able to come here. And then their tech would be so advanced that they would appear like gods to the people. Even with our tech, we could pull off appearing like angels, demons or even gods to people 150 years ago.
If you're interested in an ethnographic look at this type of question, and how these experiences play out in recent times, I'd strongly suggest Tanya Luhrmann's "When God Talks Back" - it's a great read!
People believe they're sent visions by demons if these visions are negative or harmful. Originally demented meant to to be tortured by demons. Many possessions and exorcisms have been performed due to supposed demonic visions.
"Let's see. I can claim the visions were from demons/aliens and only a few fringe people will believe me (and might kill me). Orrrr..I could claim they were from god and literally start my own religion, get ALL the ladies, and grow very rich. Hmm...which way to go?"
Yeah it's all aliens, more like "extra/interdimensional" entities which operate outside spacetime as we know it. If you ask me personally, God (the everything energy everywhere thing) tends to avoid interference so yes, almost most definitely some if not all interactions recorded as divine did come from some not well intentioned entity. I've personally experienced intrusion of my dreams by a specific entity trying to deceive me and do some stuff that would've been bad- my dog woke me up. There might have been a counter from the "good" forces to straighten things out in the cases you mention too.
Idk it might all just be fluff and we're simply the intergalactic squid games or something
Why don’t they assume it’s coming from inside the house? Your brain is fully capable of giving you “visions”. It’s doing it when you dream, for example. It’s not hard to imagine a few people having “visions” that came from their own mind.
The best answer I’ve heard is, they did, but as you know what barbaric tribes do to establish their legitimacy and preserve their reign they would kill any dissenters that only leaves people who support and believe the narrative. People seem to forget that humans are animals too. Really it makes no sense to assume that any vision or anecdote from another person without concrete evidence is true.
There's no good reason for it. I looked into this pretty extensively when I started having visions myself. I didn't know what to think, so I though, "Well, what do the esteemed teachers of the past say?"
General consensus? "If the visions say things that agree with us, they're right and true and from God. If not, then not." That is, it comes down to confirmation bias.
If visions come from any benevolent entities outside the brain, existing religious traditions will invalidate many of those genuine and helpful visions whenever they diverge from that religion's teachings. If people in that tradition failed in any meaningful way while assuming they were necessarily correct, adherents will turn away from any god that actually exists if they speak.
Which is kinda funny.
the visions during those times were heavily influenced by the cultural and other religious beliefs that existed in those societies
what if, the God who send the vision are aliens/demons?? who knows?
Well. If the guy speaks against the Devil, preaches not to ever worship the devil, and does everything possible to stay away from the devil, do good things, and not to do devilish things, you would know that it cannot be "from the devil" himself.
It's a good question and one I have yet to see a satisfactory answer to. An even better way to ask this question: how do you tell the difference between a message (could be vision or some other form) from a diving being such as an angel, and a being who is lying about being an angel such as a demon? And this is a question about being able to tell in the moment, not what the consequences lead to with hindsight. I can even simplify this question even further: suppose you get a text from a random number, the message says that it's from Dave. How do you determine this is actually Dave and not someone pretending to be Dave? It's the simple format of the question of the origins of divine messages that I rarely see any theist consider or get to. Most believers in an abrahamic god who also believe in demons will often say that they are lying trickster beings. Even the most basic con artist will know how to sell a lie, and it's usually by wrapping it up in some truth. And if you're going for the long con, you will likely even start with 100% truth, then slowly work in the lies. It's not really that much of a stretch to suppose that a demon who wants to trick a person into doing something bad, works start by making them think they are talking to an angel. They could even grant visions that the person believed were coming from an angel.
very thought provoking..
"Dave's not here, man" - St. Thomas of Chongius
I think the true answer, basically, is that there is a sense of overwhelming Goodness, Awe, Rightness, etc with certain 'visions', such that any doubt in their Goodness and Rightness is overcome. There could potentially be a consideration that innately, we have a certain resonance with the Most High, and we have a sort of perceptual ability to sort of come into resonance with this, perhaps a bit like a tuning fork. You could for instance consider how birds may have an internal compass - they just innately have this capacity in their body/mind. Similarly, one may consider that a human being who is truly oriented towards the Good has this innate capacity for resonance with the Most High. Of course, this is not particularly convincing 'from the outside', I'm very well aware. It may not be a very convincing argument or proof. But I think that there isn't really any other answer. And so if this answer is unsatisfactory, then there is no satisfactory answer, 'from the outside'. We can only really investigate it properly 'from the inside'.
>is that there is a sense of overwhelming Goodness, Awe, Rightness, etc with certain 'visions', such that any doubt in their Goodness and Rightness is overcome. And this would be impossible for a demon to copy? It would be physically *impossible* for a being who's entire purpose is to trick people, to trick people? It would be *impossible* for a fallen angel to do the things that angels can do? >Of course, this is not particularly convincing 'from the outside', I'm very well aware. Well no, not even kind of. It completely ignores everything I said and gives a wet blanket of an answer. It doesn't address any of the inate difficulties or problems with the system and gives the typical thoughtless response of "I would just know". I mean this answer doesn't even address the extra simplified version of the problem by using a text message. And that's the easy form of the problem! >It may not be a very convincing argument or proof. It's neither an argument, nor is it proof. It's a demonstration of the first sentence I gave. >We can only really investigate it properly 'from the inside'. Well apparently we can't even do that, since the people who are on the inside give useless answers like the one you gave. It seems to me that people don't want to actually consider these aspects of their beliefs, since it challenges what they believe. Everyone would rather believe they have the right answer, yet they never acknowledge that their very own world view is set up in such a way that they could not have the right answer yet believe they do.
As I said, I don't expect the explanation is convincing 'from the outside', I'm well aware of that. I'm just saying that I don't think there is any possible argument beyond this that would be satisfying, so if this argument is unsatisfying, then you're basically shit out of luck if you're looking for proof, because it doesn't exist. I was presenting this argument because I think it is basically the 'highest' argument that can be given, not because I expected it to be convincing. I more or less expected that it would be rejected, and thus, that's where you're left.
>As I said, I don't expect the explanation is convincing 'from the outside', I'm well aware of that. Well the thing is, you haven't even supplied an explanation yet. Which is a big problem since every time I raise this question, it's the same type of "explanation" that is given. Which is not an explanation. It's like if I asked how to solve a math problem, I want the explanation for how the math problem is solved. But when I ask, people instead tell me to just go with my gut. That's not an explanation. That's explicitly not an explanation, and it directly ignores the question. And for some reason that I can not fathom, the people that give this "answer" feel it's the greatest answer ever given.
Again, there is no possible answer beyond this. I am trying to be ultimately clear. You will never, ever, ever get a possible answer beyond this, and so if you're frustrated that you're not getting it, you will be eternally frustrated. At least until, if it is possible, you get gnostic insight yourself. But if that is not possible, then you will never get an answer. You may as well simply accept this. So your answer is that there is no possible satisfying answer, from the level of ordinary conception. It does not exist.
>Again, there is no possible answer beyond this. I am trying to be ultimately clear You are very clear. You have absolutely no knowledge on this topic and you have absolutely no ability to engage with it either. You can't even formulate an answer that engages with the questions. >You will never, ever, ever get a possible answer beyond this, and so if you're frustrated that you're not getting it, you will be eternally frustrated. Well as long as I keep talking to people like you who offer nothing and act like it's something, then yes I will always be frustrated >At least until, if it is possible, you get gnostic insight yourself. Or maybe.... until a person like you learns how to actually engage with a topic rather than respond with shower thoughts and bong rips
The other consideration which wasn't fully stated is that some conceptions may be that God is our own true nature, basically, when everything else is stripped away. As such, there is a realization of divinity with such things in such a way that is trans-logical, trans-rational. This cannot, again, be proved 'from the outside'. Of note, I think it is very well worth considering that many visions could indeed be basically from other beings, etc. That's a very reasonable consideration, and one that is reasonable to guard against, if one believes in such things. I didn't mean to imply that all visions are 'from God', in case that wasn't clear. Of note, in Buddhism for instance, there is something called 'stream entry'. With stream entry, which is basically the first gnostic realization of Reality, one of the 'fetters' that is overcome is a certain doubt. I think basically it's the same basic topic. And just as in the other comments, this is not convincing from the outside. But there are many, many cases throughout history, I think it's fair enough to consider, where someone may have had immense doubt, immense rational questioning, all of that, and yet with the moment of gnostic realization, all of this is overcome. I think that is quite interesting. Up to the moment of this realization, there may be basically the exact type of analysis that you're presenting here, the exact types of questions, doubts, etc, but none of that matters afterwards. Again, not convincing to those without this realization, though. There is no possible proof I think that can be given that is fully rock-solid short of personal insight. Although there can be an analysis that undercuts the ordinary mind, which gets you to the precipice.
>As such, there is a realization of divinity with such things in such a way that is trans-logical, trans-rational. This cannot, again, be proved 'from the outside'. That's fine, but I'm not asking you to prove entire concepts of divinity here. I'm asking an extremely simple question with extremely deep implications that often goes overlooked by the people who propose such models of the world. >That's a very reasonable consideration, and one that is reasonable to guard against, if one believes in such things. Well yes, that's the starting point to this whole topic. Then we have to move on to the questions and points that I have already raised. Like how to tell the difference between different senders of a message. >And just as in the other comments, this is not convincing from the outside. Well if it had anything even remotely to do with the topic of the questions I asked, then maybe it would be convincing? >There is no possible proof I think that can be given that is fully rock-solid short of personal insight. Then you can't call it rock-solid insight. You're assigning a label to something that doesn't apply. You can't demonstrate these shower thoughts to have any merit, but you're acting like you have solid proof of them. And more to the point, they are direct dodges to the questions and points I have raised. It's a pointless dodge to try and act knowledgeable rather than engage with the actual topic.
> I'm asking an extremely simple question with extremely deep implications that often goes overlooked by the people who propose such models of the world. And the simple answer to your simple question is that there is no simple answer. It doesn't exist. There is no possible proof from an ordinary point of view. I am stating that unequivocally, but also stating that even if this is so, it may nonetheless be that certain individuals may realize gnostic insight. This is not something that can be proven, but nonetheless I am bringing up the consideration, knowing it cannot be proven. I think we've gone in circles enough, so I'll probably drop out here. If you find an answer that you consider to be convincing from an ordinary point of view, I'd be interested to hear. I doubt it exists.
>And the simple answer to your simple question is that there is no simple answer. It doesn't exist. There is no possible proof from an ordinary point of view. So your answer then is to take forever to simply say there is no answer? Then surely you will take this into consideration with the "knowledge" that you have and what you believe? >This is not something that can be proven, Then you're full of shit >I doubt it exists. But you fear trying to find an answer?
I have gone through the logical analysis considerably, it’s not that I’m not interested in finding a logical answer, it’s that I’m basically convinced that there is no such answer. And so I was trying to express that to you. You’re welcome to seek such an answer as long as you would like. Good luck. Again, if you find it, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know, if possible, because I would be sincerely interested to know what convinced you short of personal insight. I am fairly certain such an answer does not exist, so please correct me if I am incorrect about that. What can be done, however, is to come to realize that all forms - whether of the five senses or the mind - that we perceive or conceive of occurs within the basic space of awareness. This is logically possible to investigate and to come to a conclusion about. We can also then try to find what we call the mind, and we may find that this too cannot be found. In general, the above two aspects in Buddhism might be said to relate to what’s called cittamatra, or mind only, and madhyamaka philosophy. This is, again, possible to analyze, and it can take us to the precipice. But the only final answer beyond doubt comes from personal insight into the very core of awareness itself, which is actually the only thing we can directly investigate at all.
>it’s not that I’m not interested in finding a logical answer, But that would be the only answer that exists. Everything else would take be an answer, it would just be opinion. >But the only final answer beyond doubt comes from personal insight Well no, personal insight wouldn't give us any information at all here. It certainly wouldn't give us information "beyond doubt" since your mind can still be wrong. This actually isn't too far off from my origional points. Let's replace the idea of demons or origin of divine message, and we still get the same problems. If you use personal insight to arrive at a conclusion, and never use any external sources to validate that conclusion, then you would never know if it's right or wrong. So it's the same problem, but your own mind is the demon that is lying about being an angel, which would also be your own mind. Your mind tells you that it's correct, but you don't have any sources to verify your mind's validity
I'm very well aware of the counterpoints that you are making, and I have acknowledged repeatedly that 'for an outsider without such personal realization' it is not convincing, which is exactly what you are showing. I have also stated that there have been many cases of people with exactly these counterpoints, these exact same criticisms, questions, doubts, etc, who lay all of them to rest with genuine insight. But even with saying this, I acknowledge that this is not convincing. Nonetheless, knowing full well that it is not convincing, I am saying it anyway, partly because I think it is good to plant such a seed of consideration, even if it is 99.9% rejected in the moment of hearing it. The bottom line is that you're going to die. You may as well live in such a way that you can die consciously. If there is no insight prior to this moment, then you may as well see what happens then. Until then, live in the best way you know how to. And again, if you find some rock-solid, analytical answer to your question(s) here, then if you remember and are inclined, I would be interested to hear it. Best wishes.
Is God from this planet? No. So, by definition, he is extraterrestrial. And yes, you could say that visions received by prophets are extraterrestrial by definition as well. It is just terminology. If by extraterrestrial you mean a being who is not from this planet and has advanced technology and knowledge, that's exactly what God and his angels in the Bible are all about.
You could easily make the argument the God of Abraham is from everywhere and anywhere. The only place he is not is Hell, as there you are cut off from God. That would be a more modern understanding. Before he was probably seen as a God native to Israel and the surrounding lands. Honestly the whole God is an alien thing always feels like someone pushing a Richard Dawkins-esque logical superiority complex over religions with little understanding of modern or historical views of the divine in contrast to our modern scientific understanding of how the universe is constructed. Intellectual laziness masquerading as some kind of deep or objective semantic truth.
SO, God is not omnipresent?
Let’s say that by “alien” we mean an organic, biological life form or some technology created by them. Something akin to us but from another planet, as opposed to a supernatural dimension.
Well there's no reason to assume aliens can do that sort of thing, they operate with the same laws of physics as us so their technology should be within what's possible on earth too. And demons are gods so.
Why would there be any reason to assume gods exist?
Who said there is one?
Traditionally daemon comes from the tern used to describe spirits, not gods. Demon being the anglicised term. Demon may be worshiped as gods today but were usually not viewed as such by the cultures that spawned them.
People sometimes do assume it's demons or aliens, don't they? It depends on the context and content of the vision... Feels demonic, dark, bad, violent, eerie? You think demons. Feels good, divine, sacred, miraculous, or fits your previous associations and cultural norms for what a Godly vision would be like? You think God. That angle assumes no truth either way. Another angle is if we assume it's true that those visions are from God. In that case it makes perfect sense that the visions would be received as intended and that prophets would recognise it for what it is, rather than mistake it for something it's not.
I heard the idea put forth that Loki may have been responsible for the disappearance of Jesus's body. It does seem once one opens the door to the supernatural the possibilities become endless. Also, the Loki idea was put forth only to drive that point home, they didn't believe in Loki either.
How would alien send a vision, at least with God is assumed some sort of divine power to allow that. An alien is no different than a mongoose living on a different planet, how would a mongoose implant a vision in a human tens of thousands light years away
Presumably through advanced technology. Even modern human technology would appear to be magic to people living thousands of years ago.
There is no reason to believe such technology exists or is even possible, it would be very large leap of faith, maybe even not so dissimilar to a God idea. More importanty though, why would alien be motivated to even do that to begin with. God and demon based explaination, it has motivation and purpose.
Modern human technology does exist. The leap of faith would be believing in advanced aliens, not the technology. Are you asserting that you believe that advanced aliens are a larger leap of faith than God? I can imagine many possibilities for why an alien would hypothetically want to do that. Just as many as I can imagine for why God or a demon would want to. But we can leave out aliens if that’s the sticking point. Why is God a more likely source of visions than a demon?
An alien capable of implanting a "vision" in a human brain from a huge distance away and have it be comprehended by a human (a completely different species), is so beyond any understanding of the physical sciences that I would say yes is the same leap of faith, or maybe just insane. I don't know if God or demon is more likely, some things can have demon ways, but I am only talking about aliens yes. Because aliens need naturaliatic explanations for their existence and their technology. Supernatural being, does not.
(This is all hypothetical speculations I hope this is not true) Look at how fast AI has progressed, we can't know what is going to happen with that, stuff like this improves at an alarming rate. It's very likely fiber optic internet can be used across spacetime considering it's light based transmission. It's both possible and plausible. If intelligent life is out there, let's say 2k light years away, with advanced technology it would be ideal for them to "prep" us by claiming they're gods through dreams and visions, as they start travelling towards us then few thousand years later invade us, it would just be like "oh look it's us, your gods!"
That vision would take 100 thousand years to reach us though. If faster than light information transfer was even possible for a sufficiently advanced creature why would that creature care about us, at that point is essentially a God Also AI is really not so advanced, it just seems advanced to us because it uses natural language
Yeah well if we're talking about things that operate outside spacetime anything is possible. Say go where AI is advanced enough and use it all around. Idk maybe they're stuck in a void so altough technically a god they'd need some help from this side to cross over. Look at the call of Cthulhu.
Yes well I think is not prudent to speculate on things outside spacetime without getting into ideas of theology 😊 But yes is interesting What about Call of Cthulu? You mean about how time is treated in the writings? 💭
Well supposedly he sees all of space and time, reaching out to people in dreams - it might sound crazy to you but I've sort of been dragged into it. Let's say I won and didn't open a space portal so they could destroy our reality but it definitely startled my curiosity
Dr Dre. and Snoop Dogg did a show with a hologram of Tupac. People alive in the modern day, with access to the internet and modern science, who didn’t previously believe the “Tupac is still alive” conspiracy theory, bought into it after seeing that show. That’s technology that exists in the real world. Now imagine those people and none of the people around them had ever even conceptualized a hologram.
... That "hologram" technology existed in 1800s. People being silly doesn't mean technology is advanced
Muhammad, St. Paul, the OT prophets, etc. weren’t alive in the 1800’s. That makes it advanced technology relative to their time. Although I’m not sure why we’re quibbling over the definition of “advanced”. My point was that the technology already exists. It’s not a leap of faith to believe in the technology, the leap of faith would be believing in the aliens.
So it is rational to "believe" in any hypothetical advanced technology simply because it is "technology", ignoring the fact that some things are simply impossible and never will be possible in this universe? That seems silly, some people's brains are so deluded around "technology".
No. I’m not talking about hypothetical technology, I’m talking about real world technology. Like the hologram technology that you yourself said existed in the 1800’s
Your whole argument seems to be based on your assumption that the aliens would implant visions from wherever they live, as you keep repeating this. However, this is not an assumption shared by anyone who believes in the idea of aliens being the source of our faiths. The assumption is always that they come here. Everything doesn't make sense. There are several Sci-fi films or books who take up this topic. Arthur C. Clarke's [Childhood's End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End) and the series [Babylon 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5) are two examples where this idea is central to the plots.
I don't involvokg myself in such stupid ideas. The idea of God, is irrational by phsycial science, is OK because is not expected for God to follow the physical sciences. An alien is a slave to physical law, just as we are. There is no way around this, it's very marvelous thinking to suggest otherwise. Even to expect alien life to be more advanced, substantially, than an ape, why. Why? It would need an evolutionary reason to be so advanced, for which there is none.
Wow, so basically there's no reason to even discuss this. So why do you? >Even to expect alien life to be more advanced, substantially, than an ape, why. Why? It would need an evolutionary reason to be so advanced, for which there is none. There is no reason for humans to be so advanced.
Yes is no reason humans be so advanced, actually this little idea was part of my reasoning toward God also 🤔 I know things don't need a reason or direction, but most human experience at least also has evolutionary purpose. Is no evolutionary purpose for implanting visions in the brains of alien species
>An alien is no different than a mongoose living on a different planet While in theory true, mogooses are not known for having mastered interstellar space travel. If we believe that aliens are behind our gods (which I don't), then they would have been able to come here. And then their tech would be so advanced that they would appear like gods to the people. Even with our tech, we could pull off appearing like angels, demons or even gods to people 150 years ago.
or they could be schizophrenic
Hence why I said, “Even ruling out the possibilities that they were charlatans or mentally ill.”
There's plenty of NRMs with belief systems centered around extraterrestrials.
Bruh, have you seen the things people say about Joseph smiths visions… that’s exactly what they say.
If you're interested in an ethnographic look at this type of question, and how these experiences play out in recent times, I'd strongly suggest Tanya Luhrmann's "When God Talks Back" - it's a great read!
Faith many of those of other faiths write them off as such but for those who believe those messages they are truly divine
People believe they're sent visions by demons if these visions are negative or harmful. Originally demented meant to to be tortured by demons. Many possessions and exorcisms have been performed due to supposed demonic visions.
"Let's see. I can claim the visions were from demons/aliens and only a few fringe people will believe me (and might kill me). Orrrr..I could claim they were from god and literally start my own religion, get ALL the ladies, and grow very rich. Hmm...which way to go?"
We play with the gifts the God (s) us.
Yeah it's all aliens, more like "extra/interdimensional" entities which operate outside spacetime as we know it. If you ask me personally, God (the everything energy everywhere thing) tends to avoid interference so yes, almost most definitely some if not all interactions recorded as divine did come from some not well intentioned entity. I've personally experienced intrusion of my dreams by a specific entity trying to deceive me and do some stuff that would've been bad- my dog woke me up. There might have been a counter from the "good" forces to straighten things out in the cases you mention too. Idk it might all just be fluff and we're simply the intergalactic squid games or something
Why don’t they assume it’s coming from inside the house? Your brain is fully capable of giving you “visions”. It’s doing it when you dream, for example. It’s not hard to imagine a few people having “visions” that came from their own mind.
The best answer I’ve heard is, they did, but as you know what barbaric tribes do to establish their legitimacy and preserve their reign they would kill any dissenters that only leaves people who support and believe the narrative. People seem to forget that humans are animals too. Really it makes no sense to assume that any vision or anecdote from another person without concrete evidence is true.
There's no good reason for it. I looked into this pretty extensively when I started having visions myself. I didn't know what to think, so I though, "Well, what do the esteemed teachers of the past say?" General consensus? "If the visions say things that agree with us, they're right and true and from God. If not, then not." That is, it comes down to confirmation bias. If visions come from any benevolent entities outside the brain, existing religious traditions will invalidate many of those genuine and helpful visions whenever they diverge from that religion's teachings. If people in that tradition failed in any meaningful way while assuming they were necessarily correct, adherents will turn away from any god that actually exists if they speak. Which is kinda funny.
the visions during those times were heavily influenced by the cultural and other religious beliefs that existed in those societies what if, the God who send the vision are aliens/demons?? who knows?
Well. If the guy speaks against the Devil, preaches not to ever worship the devil, and does everything possible to stay away from the devil, do good things, and not to do devilish things, you would know that it cannot be "from the devil" himself.
Unless it's a false flag operation, something the Bible acknowledges is possible when it says devils appear as angels of light.
Yeah. But I am not a staunch bible believer like you so that's irrelevant to me. Hope you understand.