First thing first. I do not want anything about religion here in this topic. This is a question pretty much to atheists who do not believe in the existence of a Divine Being / Creator / Alpha & Omega / God.

So here's the question:

Let's take a look of what intangibility really is:

http://www.answers.com/topic/intangible

Incapable of being perceived by the senses.
Incapable of being realized or defined.
Incorporeal.

Now the argument from atheists is that: "we cannot see God, therefore God must not exists". However, what really begs a question here is that what about intangibles like "feelings", "love", "sadness", or even "joy"? Aren't they all intangibles, as to how a God can intangible? Sure, atheists will tell you that "feelings" can be measured with machines, due to our chemical reactions from the body itself, be it love, or sadness.

Here's the big question then. How is it then, that the "feeling" of believing in a God, any different from the chemical reactions that can be measured by science? Sure, they call it a "delusion", something I think a lot of people has as well, but the problem is, how will you justify your acceptance of the chemical reaction of your body pertaining to human emotions, and not the chemical reaction of a "feeling" to believe in a God?

After all, it's all only graphs and spectrum from a machine. Are "feelings" really just electronic impulses from a machine? And if they're not all "simply readings of a machine", then how do you actually believe in something that doesn't really have a corporeal, tangible form? Is that not describable as delusion as well? And lastly, if that's not really a delusion, then how is it different for a similar intangible Being known as God? Why is that you can accept the "existence" of "emotions of love", but not the "epiphany of God"? Are they both not intangible? Maybe you can say by saying: "Oh I can believe in the emotion of love because I can relate it to my mother taking care of me." But isn't that just a tangible circumstance that lead you to believe about this word: "love", and not the actual essence and existence "love" itself? How then it is different from a delusion as you atheists may have claimed about the belief of God as well?

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: May 30 2010, 03:01 PM

If love, sadness and joy can be perceived by our senses, then they would be tangibles according to the definition you posted.

On your question

There's no difference to me. My hope of going to heaven if I do good things is no different than my hope of winning a lottery if I buy enough tickets. People can call it blasphemous to equate a lottery to heaven but as far as I'm concerned, all do-A-get-B concepts that work off blind faith fire off the same neurons in the mind.

Again, as long as anger, sadness, and hope can be felt, the first criteria of tangibility you posted is satisfied so emotions are 'real' in that regard. Now, can God be felt? Not to me. There is no emotion called God. Neither is it a force of gravity, heat or electricity that can be felt. For an all-powerful always present superbeing that promises to pulverize you for being disobedient, it is extremely shy. It doesn't satisfy any criteria of tangibility that I know.

If you don't want anything about religion here in this topic, it's gonna be hard when you ot the word God appearing 9 times in the original post.

there are also theoretically existent items that cannot be detected at current technology level. the higgs boson is a very prominent example - so called the "god particle" not because its all powerful, but because for something thats supposed to be everywhere,no one has seen it yet.

and yes, if you ask me, emotions are but result of hormones and chemicals. as shown by hormonal imbalance affecting emotions (pms), mood altering drugs, hormone therapy, etc.

Yes there will always be physical phenomena that's beyond the range of our physical senses but they're existence can be mathematically proven like the black holes and dark matter. We cannot see them but they leave measurable trails like gravity from which we infer their existence, even their mass. Can emotion be calculated and weighed? Hard to imagine.

Drug effects prove the strong link between consciousness and the biological brain, but hormones create them or they create hormones, I'm unsure. Adrenalin is produced by our system when we experience intense fear so it seems to me that such chemicals are an effect of emotion, not a cause.

provided the maths is correct (which they usually are, but still)

feelings being intangible, is given meaning and interpretation to its causes based on one's belief system. The same feeling u claim to be caused by god, can also be the same feeling another claim to be caused by devil.

Im not sure if i can get what u trying to say, but base on my understanding about what u talking on the first thread i think u actually miss the "believe by reasoning" part, what i can see is using feeling to determine whether u believe it or not

Happiness, sadness, love, all this we describe in words can be "feel" through our emotion and we usually use it to express how we feel or what is our current emotions are, we dont need much reason to say it is real or not because thats how we feel.
For god and other unexplanable feeling, at least so far there is no any explanation on how god feels like, how do we actually know that that "feeling" is call god by not others?
In my opinion, feeling can be manipulate. One good example is how many people especially teenagers think that someone or the one he/she like has the same feeling as them.
Same thing can happen when someone say that when something bad happen they heard a "voice" that telling them what to do. That "voice" most probably caused by their own conscience if we view it in a scientific way where we tell themself what is right and wrong when dealing with the reality where we exist.
But it can be vary due to what a person believe. They can treat a good message from that voice (produce from own conscience) as a voice from god telling or advice them what to do, or treat a bad message as a devil speaking to them.

In the end, at least for me, god is not to feel.
Feel can easily mislead us to all types of situation, especially when our mind is close enough to believe that all unexplanable events is related to what we wan to believe

But wouldn't that make the "feeling of God" equally as "feeling love / joy / sadness"? The problem still remains as in why will people rather accept and believe in the existence of the "feelings of love", and completely rejected the "feelings of the existence of a God".

Exactly, they're the same.

True, but how is that "feeling" emotions are real, and the "feeling of a God" be fake then? There are still chemical reactions in the body whenever they "feel" something, but how are those two different "feelings" any different at all?

I understand your need for tangibility when it comes to the existence whom you thought to be shy, but aren't your "feelings" for human emotions are equally shy in physical, corporeal form?

LOL, not to worry. I look at the word "God" as something very universal, it's basically also known as the Alpha and the Omega.

True, but why it is interpreted by so many due to the acceptance of "feelings of basic human emotions", and not "feelings of a Deity"?

Your argument is pretty much as Beastboy's, so you gotta read the reply to his post.

bah, didnt TS mention he dont want any religious discussion here?

learn to read TP!

how are you people taking TP seriously?

This seems to be the core assertion of your argument. I'll offer a few responses.

Firstly, I would definitely make a distinction between God and emotions - both have different ontologies.

God would be a being, invisible, yes, but a being with (some) attributes of a person. For example, he can communicate with other human beings.

An emotion would not be a being, but rather, a state. To be more exact, an emotion occurs when certain parts of the brain is bathed in a certain mix of neuro-chemicals (and of course, other stimuli), thereby generating anger, sadness and other emotions.

Emotions are "intangible" for the simple reason that they occur on a molecular level. Actually, emotions can be "seen" - the brains of people hooked to MRI machines show distinctly different patterns when in various emotional states.

God, on the other hand, is ostensibly undetectable by our five senses and modern instruments. Many people have claimed to see such a being and it is up for question whether they did actually experience "God". (Of course, discounting any and every account of experience with God for some a priori philosophical reason would be quite naive - each experience must be examined individually)

In other words, just because something is intangible doesn't mean it does not exist, but the opposite is true as well.

This post has been edited by lycaphim: May 31 2010, 09:30 PM

my thoughts are similar to beastboy's.......

here's study on the "experience of god" by science, namely neurotheology


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology

although the "god helmet" experiment has some controversy..........it does offer some food for thought......

Learn to read linoob....
i was merely using his example to demonstrate a point...no where did i mention religion. why are u so uptight all the time?
text bolded for linoob to feel silly at himself.

This post has been edited by teongpeng: Jun 1 2010, 12:16 AM

But consider this: If feelings, emotions can be detected via MRI machines due to the chemical activities in our body, how are that any different when one person claims to say he "feels" God, instead of "feels" <insert any known emotion here>?

Let's have an example.

Let's say you know what love is, and you know it exists. And so, for the sake of argument, that I disagree with you that love actually exists, and implored you to explain to me: "What is love?". Now of course, the definition of the word "love" is rather vast, but most people will usually attribute it to what they've usually experience when they're with their mothers. They explain how nice is to feel a mother's hug when you hurt your knee or something like that. And they'll tell you, that's love.

Now here's the problem: I might not be able to DUPLICATE the same experience of love that you have to, so I probably will not understand the answer, of what "love" is, or how does it "feel" like. You see, if I asked what is a ball, and you will simply show me a ball, or when I asked what is an oxygen, you will simply show me a contraption that is able to contain oxygen and conduct an experiment to differentiate the non-existence and existence of oxygen itself. And hence, oxygen has been proven to be existed. But when I asked, what is "love"? How do you want to show me that? Sure, you mentioned how MRI machines are able to detect activity in the brain when a person "feels" something, how am I supposed to know what a "feeling" or an emotion is, I mean after all if emotions and feelings are nothing but mere chemicals activities or electrical impulses in the body, how is that any different then, to a person when he/she says, "I feel it spiritually, or I have an epiphany, or a revelation-oriented feeling"?

How then, that electrical impulses and chemical reactions attributed to "love", "sadness", "happiness", or whatever "feelings" are there, are completely acceptable as a VALID existence, but not when a person experiences or "feels" a spiritual connection? How do these "feelings" defer, either from the MRI machine, or from scientific acceptance at all?

So back to the question: So I asked, "What is love?", and let's just say you answered: "Oh, have you experience it before that after getting a spanking or something from your dad, and then your mom comes to you to comfort you with a hug or by stroking your hair and such?"

Now with that question in mind, I will have to tap into my brain's memory to seek anything that resembles the situation that somehow incorporates to the "feeling of love". And then when I finally got it, then I will say, "Oh yeah, totally man. I got most spankings from dad, and I love my mum so much for comforting me all the time." And then you continued: "Yeap, that's love for you alright". And I followed: "Yeah, totally agree."

Now this situation as an example that I've posted has a rather preposterous similarity going on here. MRI machines are able to detect all activity in the brain and perhaps other contraptions may detect any movements or chemical reactions in the body. The problem is, it will can never define or finally conclude that the "feeling of love" has to be precisely at a certain mathematical reading, so that we can finally tell if the person is ACTUALLY feeling this so-called "love". So far, our scientific progress with machines has only able to DETECT ACTIVITY in our body. It CANNOT determine if the person is actually "feeling love" that came from REAL EXPERIENCE. It only detects what a person REMEMBERS from his memory of what love is, whether it may be from a movie he watched, or really from a mother's embrace. Now, in today's society, if you were to tell people you know the "feeling of love" only because you watched it from TV, people will reject you on the spot, accusing you to not have a REAL "LOVE" EXPERIENCE. But this is not necessarily true, why? Well, one thing for sure, you can't really tell people what are they feeling, and even by the help of an MRI machine, can you tell or rather, DIFFERENTIATE if he is REALLY "feeling" this emotion known as "love", or is it the complete OPPOSITE? There's even a technique for someone to CHEAT a LIE DETECTOR by deluding yourself in a pretense that the LIE is ACTUALLY the TRUTH!

But then again, back to the question. Some one say, "I feel God in me". Another says, "I feel love in me". Now these two are feelings, notice that God isn't really an emotion, but a rather abstract substance, similar to one what will describe in the English language or in any language as the word: "love". So how do you justify yourself, to accept, by saying, "love" exists, but not God?

This is what I meant by intangibility. Not only is completely ABSTRACT, but with no DEFINITE law of any definition at all, except at the mercy of personal, and perhaps emotional, "touchy feeling", "experience", opinionated answers.

Which leads me to the second question:

Where did intangibility get its name? Or rather, why was there even a CONCERN to coined a TERM that is NON-tangible? Scientific machines don't exists the last time, but that didn't stop people to believe in intangibility such as "feelings", or the word: "spiritual"?

Love may be a simple emotion. Now here's a challenge. How do you measure the "feeling": Honor, as in: "I'm feeling honored to be here".

What is this "honor" emotion/feeling, that actually got people into believing that it ACTUALLY exists? Could it be because we're feeling the same emotion so that we can accept that it exists, that we never question its existence at all? But that's rather UNSCIENTIFIC isn't it? To have facts based on personal feelings rather than an observable and measurable substance? Now this is seriously a question that all who calls himself rational and scientific have to answer.

There is no emotion called: God, but what is emotion really? Emotions are at best what you "feel", according to the English Language. So how does that stop the acceptance of someone who "feels" that "God blessed this place", or "God is here", in comparison to "I feel honored", or even "I feel frustrated"? Unless of course, if the non-acceptance of a "God-feeling" is due to emotional reasons such as "Why wouldn't God reveal himself", or "How can God allow this", then I submit to you those emotional reasons definitely do not constitute to anything intellectual, and it will take theology to answer your question, in which I've stressed that no religion should be allowed in this thread of mine, except the understanding that the word "God" that I've used is to denote Creator of all essence of the singularity that brought forth the Big Bang, or the origins of Universe / Alpha & Omega category.

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: Jul 12 2010, 02:10 AM

Sorry but I had to say this first.
Ah Peng and Ah Noob what is with you two?

In order not to mention GOD, intangible cant be comprehended with the senses. Yet it exist, so it requires the mind to understand it. Science and reason may not always work.

Isn't it that "Believing" and "Denial" play a major parts in this issue?

For some; " i believe in my feeling but i deny the feel of spiritual being ".
Yet for others; " i believe in the existence of spiritual being and fate and i deny all feeling of myself loving or caring for others ".

one cannot control how other accept or do not accept certain facts, some serial killer actually enjoy killing others and do not feel bad at all, yet many choose to believe that killing others is bad. just like vegetarian and meat eater, they choose what they like and what they want to believe in, no one else can control that, but others can try to influence others to do the same.

"Believing" and "Denial" is yet something that cannot be measure or judge. For example, there no saying that believing in the fact "killing other people is good", it's just that majority of us decided that "killing other people is not good". For animals, some kill for survival, so the same for believing in "feel" and denial of "God" or vice versa is the same, some probably feel better or live better believing that "God" exist, but for some others denial of such existence is better for them.

There is no reason why we cannot accept others that deny the existence of "God" as intangible. There is no reason as well why we cannot accept others that believe the existence of "God" as intangible. It is just just a matter of majority, isn't it?

I, myself is one of those that believe the existence of "The One" Existence, for many so called "God", and hoping one day having the chance to meet "Him/Her/It".

Does this truly matter for others close to me that do not believe in such existence? For me, at this moment there really nothing wrong with this, unless one day if saying all who believed in this fact will be killed, then i probably choose to deny the fact for survival.

But all of that will simply means that you're in denial right?

Funny isn't it? i can explain in denial yet i deeply believing in the existence.

human always like this, deep inside they know something is truly exist and possible to be true, but yet they can deny it all if they wish to.

I truly believing in such existence, but i wont go and spread about this believe or encouraging other to have the same believe as this is not something i'm capable to do. What i can do is to tell others that i do believe that, but it doesn't matter at all if other don't believe.

But that also means you're accepting that you're in denial, isn't it?

I do not deny this fact, as i doing so to prevent myself going extreme about this, as going too extreme on one hope or believe will hurt myself more then hurting others.

Thanks to my not so great experience from before, i keep myself as neutral towards many things as possible, because i learned that putting all hope and believe with one thing will definitely hurt myself more when the hope or believe is broken.

feeling are not intangible, if it is then all those drug that alter your state of mind would not have work. brain mapping studies also show specific area reponsible for emotion.

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Added on July 15, 2010, 2:16 pmfeeling are not intangible, if it is then all those drug that alter your state of mind would not have work. brain mapping studies also show specific area reponsible for emotion.

This post has been edited by robertngo: Jul 15 2010, 02:16 PM

Isn't that just an excuse?

That means you haven't been reading my posts. If feelings are actually tangible, hence made believable, why then the "godly-feelings" are not the acceptable ones?

i though you specificly dont want to mix this topic with religion?

simply because we don't recognize that 'godly feelings' as tangible and hence we don't believe it.

hmm... probably... since it is a mindset that developed inside me as a protective measure... my mind start to tell me that believing too deeply will hurt myself, so i prevent myself to do so in many matters, it can be an excuse for protecting my "feel".

now in my mind a question pop up, is it the "existence" wan me to have this mindset or its just me having this mindset due to certain chemical in my brain trigger me to?

I didn't. I used the word God to accommodate the existence of what others "feel" about it, and comparing with what others considered to be legitimate feelings.

But wouldn't that means that your other "feelings" are as good as intangible and not believable as well?


It's you. You rather live in denial because you know the truth is rather harsh.

im pretty sure they cant feel it as well.

Yes, i am... truth is too harsh on me, so i choose to live like that so that i can calm myself and continue on with my living dealing harsh truth...

Well, I don't think they will rely on "feeling" than observations when it comes to scientific proof, but neither can they deny that they have actions motivated by "feelings" whenever they're facing the effects of social stigma.

That's rather sad, isn't it? To choose to live in fake happiness, and to not experience any true sadness.

Ya living a life for many in the world is like this, always dream and hope for true happiness that will never came true...

dreaming and hoping their believes will one day realize...

and yet, the harsh truth will be with them until the day they stop "living" in this world... that is why many choose death over living...

I'm not brave enough to choose death, so i choose fake happiness to deal with harsh truth, it's just a choice of life...

who knows, maybe some day there really is true happiness waiting for humanity in the future...

is it a little bit off topic?? hmm....

This post has been edited by ToNToRo: Jul 16 2010, 10:49 AM

Nope. It's not off-topic because I'm handling it, LOL.

I understand what you mean, but do you know that there are people who are happy even after accepting the truth? The truth may seem hard, but at least when you're happy, it's REAL happiness. That means there are no such thing as an easy way out in life by just being in denial in a fantasy world of fake joy. You have fight all the harshness in REAL life to achieve REAL happiness.

Hahaha.. i'm actually wont dwell too deep into fake happiness and imagination.... if i do that, i wont even be working in a company for only 1k salary handling executive task... i do fight for my real happiness future, its just that sometime when i feel low and struggled i rather let myself dwell into those imagination for a while to calm myself, to relax a bit...

sometime i even denying myself being in so denial and negative attitude... haha...

Kinda off topic, but worth to question. I always wondering what if we train a child to react the other way round. A happy moment, we hit him, force him to cry. When sad moment, we trained him to laugh and smile.

This might be able to prove that emotion is just a state of mind which let the people around us know we're happy or sad.

By DEFAULT, a baby will cry and laugh to show it's feeling. What if we change the default by training? I am sure this can be done. Agents like CIA, FBI or actors can control their emotion perfectly. Some of the soldiers even have no emotion, or blank. Not to mention actors and actress that won awards for outstanding performance.

How does this justify what is happy and what is sad, tangible and intangible?

Can we 'cheat' ourself that the moment is happy where in fact it is a sad moment? Is it possible that our brain fail to interpret the moment ? Some situation like a man expecting a baby so much, when the wife finally delivered the baby, the wife passed away. Will the brain try to logic that moment - 'Wife died, don't be sad, there is still a baby = Happy' or 'Wife has more memories, baby is new = Sad'. Or our brain has a weighing system, by adding the points to summarize the emotion -'Wife passed away + new baby = -10 + 5 = -5(Sad).

What about the time factor ? When we break up, we feel sad. after 2 months, we feel less sad, after 2 years we don't feel sad. Does time reduce the feeling, or the clock in our brain is telling us that '2 months passed, minus 50% of the sad feeling from the breakup'

Of course, if we put this in a general religion perspective, God created us so that we can live in this world. We should define our own path and livings, to achieve happiness. But how to define this happiness, does happiness measured on the last second in our life? Such as the moment we died, if the moment of the last beat of our heart is happy, we achieve happiness.

what makes u think that hasnt already happened to some ppl? If the person is wise...he will despise the wrongness in the lessons and think the teacher is a retard. Yes, wise ppl do not all have perfect teachings during childhood.

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Added on August 11, 2010, 11:26 pmthe fact that u can bring yourself to see that shows you have much potential for growth. be proud.


This post has been edited by teongpeng: Aug 11 2010, 11:26 PM

A wise person would not think the teacher is a retard. You are completely wrong, please do not mislead others in your delusion.

i u think im wrong back it up. if u think im deluded explain why. else you're just talking the kokking.

You are asking me to back up a common sense, much less if you were really a wise man? You think it is proper to go and tell people off that he/she is a retard? Do you have common sense or not?

Decades before, technology is not advance enough to be able to see cancer cells, therefore people never knew about cancer, making does not exist.
Maybe, we do not see a being known as God, because we do not have to tools to see him or her yet.

The only dangerous thing is not whether it is proper or not, is that he/she is REALLY a retard.

But it's all off-topic here. Read the first post if y'all wanted to understand what this thread is all about.

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: Aug 15 2010, 06:55 PM

After examining all Deadlocks' posts in connection to this thread and other thread “The acceptance of intangibility,” it seemed that his Appeal to Ignorance occurred because of an incorrect understanding of who has the burden of proof. Suppose I claim “People should accept the intangible feeling of God's presence because they have accepted their same intangible feeling of emotions.” You’d then rightly say to me, “Prove it!” If I want to make that claim, I have to provide proof. I can’t just say, “Well, prove to me there isn’t!” Because that would make the default position something like “Accept everything until you have reason not to.”

Imagine that for a moment, and you’ll realize how crazy that would be: People could claim all sorts of ridiculous things, and we’d all be walking around accepting them because no one had proved them wrong yet. How could you prove, for example, that there isn’t a Deity who manifests in the deepest part of the universe — especially if I told you The Deity has never been seen and He transcends in higher realms that are beyond our observable universe, that humans will never be able to detect Him with whatsoever instruments.

The far more reasonable default position is “Don’t accept a claim until you have good reason to accept it.” And that’s exactly the position that is established by putting the burden of proof on the person making the claim. So, just because a claim hasn’t been proven to be false, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Conversely, just because a claim hasn’t been proven to be true, it doesn’t mean it’s false. When there is insufficient proof one way or the other, one should suspend judgment.

HAhax.. its all how u interpret ur own feelings. Happiness, love, sorrow, jealous is all about how you feel. For an example, You can accept people treating you good as a happy feeling or as a love feeling. Same goes to the feeling of existance of god, when we are believing in god, you are believing we are the creator of god. God is something invincible in your mind. For example, if we pray to the god, the usage of PRAY is just representing the word of hope or wish. The word of god might be just representing the word of filling your emptiness in your heart. Human always feel not enough and created something in their mind also known as god to full fill their own desires.

A question comes here, if every ideas are from the senses such as pain, vision, feeling and others. How do we explain the idea of god? how do we have the idea of god? Is the god an idea? how do we have the idea of god? Some might said senses are having the movement of particles such as chemical reaction, the movement of chairs or any goods that converted into ideas?

Its a very huge and subjective question, If you believe in god, actually god is truly exist because the belief of god is already a feeling same as you believe people treating you good is a kind of love although its involve in real particle of movement. I mean that the people and how he treats you is a real form of particles movement.

Lastly, what is god actually if we believe in god?

Intangibility doesn't mean that things doesn't exist. It is in our mind thatwe perceive everything tangible as existent.