The Origin of God & Proving God's Existence through Personal Experience

Proving God's Existence through Personal Experience

"Eight facts about me -

1) I almost died as a baby twice. 

2) I didn't really care for vacations and pets growing up.

3) I graduated from ASU when I was 18 years old.

4) I got so good at Chinese on my mission that people confused me for a native on the phone.

5) I sometimes have dreams about the future.

6) I know (not believe) that God exists.

7) I started my own side-business but it hasn't really gone anywhere yet.

8) I rode on the back of a live crocodile once and was unharmed.

Like this post to get a number!"

It all started as one of those silly Facebook posts. But that was when it happened… A facebook friend, whom we will refer to as "Susie", began posting on my wall.

 Susie - How do you define what "knowing" is?

 Seth - I know God exists when I have spiritual experiences that are so profound or consistent that coincidence is completely out of the question.

 Susie - Wouldn't that be considered strong belief still, though? Unless the evidence is so strong that no other conceivable explanation could possibly be true, it's belief, not knowledge, right? Even coincidence is a potential explanation. If any other possibility exists, it just baaaarley falls short of knowledge.

 Seth - Consistent spiritual experiences provide the evidence needed to "know" God exists. Because each experience builds off of the last one and the probability that somehow these things naturally occur in an organized manner without the assistance of God becomes less and less with each experience. When the probability of God existing becomes greater than 99.9999% I call that knowledge.

 Susie - Cool. I wanna hear your list of events that renders the probability of the existence of God to 99.9999%. That would be mightily interesting. Pm me, if you get the chance/desire to do so.

 Seth - The equation I use is quite simple - P(God) = 1.00 - P(Every experience is a coincidence)

 And then the private messaging began…

 Seth -
 -How I know God exist -
----------------------------
P(God) = 1.00 - P(Every experience is a coincidence)

List of personal experiences with estimated probabilities

 #1 - Age 4-8
Memorized scriptures - felt inspired and able to fully understand the truth in each verse my mind was enlightened and expanded by the words.
P(God #1) = 1% God, 99% coincidence

#2 - Age 4-6
Sometimes I would lose my toys. After I would pray to find them, I would find them immediately.
 Quantity of instances 3+
P(God#2a) = 10%, 90% coincidence
P(God#2b) = 10%, 90% coincidence
P(God#2c) = 10%, 90% coincidence


#3 - Age 5
 Five members of my family were looking for a small object for 60 minutes + None of us could find it. We combed the house twice. After we all gathered for a family prayer, I was able to find it immediately afterwards.

Two events happened at the same time - Event(find object) and Event(pray). A simple probability model could say that within the timeframe of 60 minutes, there are 60 open slots for either event.

 The probability that both events happened within the same minute would be 1/60 * 1/60 = 1/360
 That is less likely to happen than to pray "Please bless this coin to land on heads 8 times in a row" and have it succeed. Not very likely to happen randomly. But hey, anything is possible.
P(God#3) = 20%, 80% coincidence

#4 - Age 8
The spirit guided me to return home at the same time that my family had gathered together in prayer because they were looking for me and thought they had lost me. Again, very unlikely. I had no idea that my family was praying for me, but I felt a strong urge to go home, despite my more selfish urges to stay outside.

Event(weird urge to go home) = 1 / 1000 times playing outside
Event(family prays to find me) = 1 / 1000 prayers.
The fact that these two events coincided at exactly the same time?
1/1000 * 1/1000 = 1 / 1,000,000 But hey, lets be reasonable! Coincidences happen!
P(God#4) = 70%, 30% coincidence

#5 - Age 3
When I was 3 my mom had me and my brother Sam. My mom was curious about how many children she would have. She prayed. Immediately after the prayer, I stopped playing with my toys and walked over to her and said, "Mommy, you are going to have five babies." and then I went back to my toys.

Event(Child leaves toys to talk to mommy) - 1/10 times playing with toys
Event(Child says something) - 1,000 random possibilities
Event(Mommy's question) - 1,000 random possibilities
Event(random words predict future) - 1 / 1000

This scenario alone shows that the probability of things playing out this way is extremely rare.
The fact that what I said matched up to her question is 1 / 1,000,000.
The fact that what I said actually came true makes it even more extraordinary at 1 / 1,000,000,000
But hey coincidences happen.
P(God) = 99% , 1% coincidence

#6 - Age 9
My parents were trying to decide which house to move into. The "red" house or the "white" house. The red house was bigger with more bathrooms, but the white house was near our cousins. My parents asked us to pray if God would help us make a decision on where to move. My always said my prayers but had never asked a question like this before. I opened my prayer like normal, but before I could finish asking the question, the answer to my question came like a revelatory bolt of lightning to my brain. It felt like the words were downloaded from heaven to my consciousness. The words came faster than I could think on my own.

 I heard the words saying, "Is a toilet going to stop you from being with your family?"

At that time I consciously knew that I had received a revelation from God. I knew that it was not my own head speaking. It was a completely new cognitive experience. There was zero doubt in my mind that God was real after this experience. After I heard these words I felt a strong urge to write them down before I forgot them. I left the note on my dresser. In the morning my parents say the note and were so impressed that they didn't need an explanation from me because they knew that those were the words of God. Needless to say, we moved into the "white" house.
E(prayer contains random question) - 1 / 1000 possibilities
P(Head randomly comes up with a response to questions) - 90% likely
P(responses impresses adults to think it is from God) - 1% likely
P(Head thinks faster than it is able to) - 0.1 % likely
P(Head experiences a new cognitive feeling like lightning) - 0.1% likely
P( Reasonable person is 100% convinced that God spoke to them) - 0.1 % likely

Multiplying all of the probabilities (ignoring the Event) it comes out to 0.000000000009 which is equal to 1 / 111,111,111,111 Very unlikely to happen randomly. But we will give coincidence the benefit of the doubt.
P(God) - 99%, 1% coincidence

-------------------------------------------------
This is just the first 10 years of my life.
-------------------------------------------------

P(Every experience is a coincidence) = .99 * .90 * .90 * .90 * .80 * .30 * .01 * .01 = 0.000017321
P(God) = 99.999982679%

-------------------------------------------------

 It was at this point in my life that I became convinced of myself that I "knew" God was real.

Susie - Very interesting math. However, I don't see the logical connection between an event occurring, and a human shaped omnipotent being existing. What you've calculated there is the probability of all those events happening exactly way they did. And yes, the probability of all that happening is extremely unlikely. It would be very unlikely for those exact events to recreate themselves somewhere else in the universe. But that calculation has nothing to do with a specific idea of an anthropomorphic father-like deity. You applied that conception to your math because that was the idea you were given to believe, and you work to prove that it is true, because that is your desire.


 Seth - No, you are reading more out of what I claimed that was actually said. I only claimed that I "knew" God existed, commonly defined as an intelligent power greater than us. Although my experiences don't necessarily prove that he is a male father, I view it as highly probable because multiple events show that this "God" responds to prayer addressing "God" as a "heavenly father". 


Susie - An intelligent power greater than us isn't the common definition of God. An alien species could be an intelligent power greater than human beings, but unless they are directly in charge of/watching/meddling with our planet, they are not our gods. If I had to place a bet, I'd personally bet that there ARE greater intelligences in our universe, but I don't find my good fortune, or any person's good fortune, a reason to believe that they are meddling in our affairs.


Seth - sorry i meant a supernatural intelligence greater than our own that has a supernatural power greater than our own -


 Susie - You're saying that because a few fortunate events occurred in close chronology with a spiritual act, the spiritual act must have a causal relationship with the event. However, a very religious person will perform spiritual acts so frequently, that it is to be expected that in the course of decades, a few of these acts will coincide with the outcome that you desire/are looking for. More frequently, however, these spiritual acts pass by without any fortunate events. If you could count the number of times a devout religious person prays against the number of times they got the sign they were looking for, I imagine it would not be statistically significant.

Also, if you were to conduct a randomized study on prayers vrs non prayers and recorded the number of times an event appears fortunate/remarkable, the data would be almost identical, certainly not statistically significant. Every person experiences these unlikely events, whether you are praying or not. That's because unlikely events happen all the time in this universe, but we're programmed to estimate probabilities in our minds automatically. When an event strikes our programming as highly improbable, it feels to us like a "miracle".

  I would LOVE to see a study done on a large number of people of the same socioeconomic class and similar lifestyle, half pray to God, half are completely unreligious, and see if the number of times a religious person feels god helped them is significantly greater than how many times the secular feel lucky. Why had no one done that?? Maybe they have... I'm gunna look it up


 Seth - I know what you are saying but there is no "pray" event that can be correlated with the "fortunate" event in a non-religious household so there will probably not be any significant feeling of luck. Without prayer, people find things when they find them. "Lucky" would imply they always find things quickly. But that is not the case for either demographic.

The difference will be that when the non-religious person is willing to give up, the religious person turns to prayer.

That behavioral factor alone could increase the success of "finding" among religious people, but there is more to it than just a behavioral change. There has to be a supernatural component because there is no natural reason why you would find things "immediately" after prayer. Prayer skeptics say, "Well its because your mind is thinking clearer when you stop and think for prayer." But according to my experience, the prayer does not help you "clearly think" of where it is. The finding event is completely random, which means subconscious guidance was involved.

 Plenty of people have guidance at the subconscious level and some have guidance at a conscious level. Many mormons have stories that play out similar to this -
1) mormon is traveling one direction,
2) spiritual inner voice tells them to stop/ change directions,
3) mormon tries to ignore inner voice because it doesnt make sense,
4) feeling/voice consistently warns the mormon 3 times,
5) mormon finally gives in and listens,
6) following the guidance saves their life from an unseen danger.

 This obviously shows that "God" exists. Where does this higher intelligence come from if not God? and supernatural feelings and thoughts that answer your questions better than you could come up with? those must come from "God" answers to questions that accurately predict the future? again - God is the only good answer - i haven't even got to burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons yet. sure maybe humanity evolved a "God" cortex of the brain that can think supernaturally, but I think that God's existence is a much better answer than that of a "God" cortex of the brain can only explain away some things. It can't explain away burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons.


Susie - I can provide explanations for each of those, actually. I've learned a lot about what the human body can experience without any outside stimulus, purely through the brain. I won't go into it because it's really personal, so never mind.

 Everything has an explanation. Because this universe strictly follows rules. If there is a mystery, it's simply because a sensible explanation has not been found yet. Some may not be within our reach to ever find, actually, but the reason still exists. Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic. If there is something going on here, if people are somehow getting access to wisdom, then something REAL is happening. It could be that encoded in our dna are stores of information from our ancient ancestors. Or maybe our epigenetics were influenced by the last few generations, and we're getting wisdom from our grandparents. Or maybe somehow conscious minds can access a collective source of information. Or maybe your neurons fired perfectly randomly (the way neurons do) and jumped to a correct conclusion, which is one of the coolest, most powerful part of our brains. Whatever it is, it's something that makes sense. The idea that an outside entity is consciously giving you information is just one idea in a sea of ideas. Maybe someone's been stalking you your whole life, setting up these scenarios to trick you (ridiculous of course, but you see what I'm saying.

There are actually NUMEROUS possible explanations, but you spend your energy defending only one, because not believing it is too great a sacrifice for you. To lose your faith would be losing to much, so you're not willing to go there).   Sorry for all the grammatical errors, not editing.


Seth - Im an honest person. I don't think that my belief in God is based on a dependence upon the social structure related to that explanation. I believe that God existing is the BEST explanation. In my opinion, none of your alternative explanations are even close to this one as a reasonable explanation for why the universe is the way it is. The existence of a God makes way more sense than a collective knowledge source (which I view as the second best explanation you have offered).
 1) collective knowledge source doesn't explain creation, the source of intelligences/spirits, the existence or good and evil, nor miracles, nor healing, nor demons, nor prophesy.
 2) collective knowledge source when compared with God's existence is equally supernatural and no more likely to be true than God actually existing.
3) a collective source of information doesn't explain our purpose. If we area all taping into collective information, why does it "tap" into us? It would make sense that in dire circumstances our brain can be triggered to activate this "collective information" function, but how does the collective information foresee danger before the individual is aware that there is a dire circumstance and project a thought upon the individual against their will? It is obvious that this "collective source of information" It has an intelligence of its own.


 Susie - You are right, that explanation doesn't make much sense. I wouldn't place a bet on it. I do however find the probability that a fully formed complex being popping into existence unlikely. A single point of energy though.... Still crazy to pop into existence, but not nearly as improbable as a complex organism being the beginning of everything. Does that make sense? Even if there are superior aliens or something "in charge" of our world, they arose from the same point of energy... I guess what I'm saying is that even if there is some sort of "god" living in our universe, it probably didn't create the universe it's in. Meaning god isn't really god in the traditional sense. If a godlike creature living in this universe DID create it, then it existed before the universe existed. Explaining why God would exist in the first place is a much more difficult question than how a point of energy might arise through a moment of quantum weirdness. The truth is, it's all the same question: why does ANYTHING exist at all? Saying, "because, god." is just the same question once removed, except way more complicated. Ok, but then where does God come from? You run into an infinite digress, and the question actually becomes much harder to answer.

 Given all that, I think simulation theory is the best explanation for the possibility of "god". I may even place a bet on simulation theory, I like it. Though it still runs into the infinite digress problem, which irks my logical mind.

Though of course I have to admit that just because it bothers my logical mind doesn't mean it's not true. I don't know anything. Nobody knows, KNOWS exactly how it works yet. And I'm ok with that. The joy of science is in continual discovery, why try hard to learn if you already have it all figured out. Anyone that says they "know" something currently unknowable is cutting themselves off from discovering other avenues of truth and possibilities. Because if information contradicts what you "know", pride will have you discount whatever it is, or twist the information to fit the world view you have chosen/publicly declared your certainty of. Far better to be open, than certain. Much better to adjust your beliefs based on what's observed, than to deny observation so that faith can be preserved.

 Btw, this conversation is so epic! I feel like we should post it somewhere, haha. Thank you thank you, I love a mormon who will actually debate me, I need the mental stimulation


The Origin of God

 Seth - I feel likewise. I look forward to responding to this once I get back to my computer hehe

 Okay, first off, I want you to have confidence that I am different than many "orthodox" religious people. I consider myself very open minded and open to new ideas. I have attended other Christian churches and studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Ancient Egyptian religions, and Mayan/Native American religion. Additionally I have read/skimmed through ancient apocrypha such as the Enochian records and Adam & Eve apocrypha.

 Ever since I was 9 years old, I felt a lot like Joseph Smith. I had this amazing spiritual experience (though not as impressive as Joseph Smith's) I found it impossible for me to deny the reality of what I had experienced.

At a young age the idea of God existing became so obvious to me that I was intrigued by the idea that smart people would struggle with this concept. I tried to see if I could "convert" athiests online. I went to scientific forum websites and would chat with smart people and try convince them of God's existence. I found it to be very difficult to persuade them. They would often bring up scientific issues with the Bible and discrepancies and topics like evolution.

At first I was opposed to the idea of evolution. But the more I listened to them I kept an open mind and what they were saying started making sense. I started to grow fond of the idea of evolution, but it didn't stop me from believing in God. As a person with a computer programmer mind, I viewed evolution as a beautiful computer program that is set up to autonomously create, improve, and adapt life. It was an ingenious system. It made sense. I thought that if I was God, I would also program the universe to have evolution.

 But I also had similar questions to you. I am also a deep thinker. What happened before the big bang, etc. At first I was also opposed to the idea of the Big Bang, but likewise, this concept grew on me. It seemed like another perfectly designed program for the creation of universes. If I was God, I would also program a Big Bang to get my universes started.

But the thing that helped me deepen my understanding of God and the Gospel the most was my study of Black Holes. Black holes answer all the deep questions. I don't think that God was created inside this universe, but rather He first began within the mother universe of our own.

How is something created from nothing? The laws of physics would like to fool you into thinking that that is not possible.

The law of conservation of energy is often poorly interpreted as "Energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changes its form."

But what I would like you to open your eyes to the possibility that there is a way to create something from nothing within the laws of physics… and that is by the mutual creation of positive and negative energy.

Conservation of energy only requires that the net energy remains the same in a system. But what if we add energy, and we also add negative energy?  We have created energy while maintaining the balance. Suppose "In the beginning" there was zero energy. But amazingly something is created out of nothing!!! But its opposite must be created in order to maintain the balance. So our universe changes from…
0 = 0
to
0 = 1 + (-1)


 Susie - Cool, making sense so far


 Seth - This can also happen if we start with 1
1 = 1

1 = 1 + [ +1 -1]

 With regard to God's complexity, you are probably thinking, "well if God started in a prior universe, the what about his God, and then what about the prior God, all the way into the beginning, how did we first have God?"

You have to realize that Evolution and the Big Bang aren't the only beautiful programs in place for the creation and development of intelligences. You also have to understand that there is a finer level of energy that we have less grasp on, which is spiritual matter.

Just as physical matter can evolve, so can spiritual. So in the beginning of every beginning, maybe there was just zero -  zero physical and zero spiritual.   But some quantum activity spontaneously created +1 -1 for both the spiritual and physical.  And then, just how the physical matter slowly bonds to itself to become stronger and more complex, the spiritual matter also bonds to itself and becomes stronger and more complex.

More quantum mistakes create more +1 and -1 and more matter of both types is gathered and naturally organizing itself onto each other.

Somehow the physical is able to attract the spiritual and they learn from each other. The first universe slowly evolved life, with began attracting spiritual matter. It is possible that through this process similar to this, the first God of Gods was "evolved". But then a system grew into place where this evolution could be replicated in subsequent universes.

And that is why it is easy for me to believe in God. Because I belief there are natural programs in place for the evolution of complexity in creatures both mentally and physically.

And with regard to the "power" of God, I think that an easy analogy would be to compare Gods power to your own.


 Susie - Now you're speakin my language!  Love it


 Seth - The Hindu's believed in multiple universes and they also believed that the human body is a symbol for the universe. The hindu's even when so far as to say that your body actually IS a universe. And so if you think about it, we ALREADY are God's of our OWN universe.


 Susie - Cool, that's what my sister believes


 Seth - We can move our hands and our feet according to our desires, within the laws of the universe. Just as we control our universe, God controls his. If you try to move your hand, what does it take? Does just purely imagining moving the hand cause it to move? Nope, you actually have to WILL it to move. That is a spiritual function.


 Susie - That's an interesting take on will, I was just trying to explore that idea with my bf yesterday!


 Seth - Now you may say, "We can move our hands because we are connected to them. But how does God move something that he is not connected to?" And that is when I would say that the Mother Black Hole to this universe IS connected to everything within the Child Universe, and therefore, there is a mechanism in place for God, via the Mother Black Hole, to be connected to everything.


 Susie - Like an umbilical chord? Are you saying that the universe IS god?


 Seth - Not really, I'm saying that I think that it is probably that God is an evolved intelligence from a prior universe who became immortal and pure enough to reside within a Black Hole and survive. By becoming pure enough to withstand the Black Hole, he becomes the master of it. By living inside of the Black Hole he becomes connected to it and can manipulate it according to his will, just as if it was a part of him.

 Additionally, I have a theory that it takes 2 to create a child universe. Alone, this "God" has only a Black Hole. But when his "Wife" inherits a Black Hole, they begin to revolve around each other. My theory continues to say that by virtue of 2 black holes revolving around each other, the two opposing directions of gravity create the strongest known burden on space-time, both tugging the same space at levels exceeding the speed of light. Under these conditions, space is ripped and positive and negative matter are created. Perhaps because both parents are "positive" matter, the parents absorb half of the newly created matter. The left over "negative" matter is repelled away from the parental twin-Black Hole system at speeds approaching the speed of light. The rip in space perhaps sends this newly created negative matter flying into another dimension, and thus we have a new universe full of "negative" matter.

http://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-use-gravitational-waves-understand-black-hole-growth/


Of course, when the negative matter slows down and becomes gravitationally attracted to itself, it will form planets and the subsequent life forms will never know the difference between a "positive" matter planet and a "negative" matter planet.  But because Black Holes slow time down to zero, that act alone connects them to everything. When time is zero, the past present and future all happen at once. You become a creature of a higher dimension.  An analogy could be, if us humans were to become zero time creatures, we would exist at every point in time at the same time. If we ran in a circle, our zero - time self would exist at every point in the circle. We would basically exist at multiple points in time at once, like a bunch of clones. But we are all connected. We are still the same. I still have control my hand in every point in time.

Similarly, the Black Hole becomes God's hand.  Everything created out of the Black Hole becomes like an extension of his hand. He can move planets like we move fingers. He can heal wounds like we blink our eyes.


 Susie - I've got to say, this is a completely new and original philosophy. I haven't heard one quite like it, and I, well, quite like it! I have had similar thoughts about mother /daughter universes and had even considered black holes as the mechanism for reproduction, but nothing quite like that. It's interesting how you can fit it in with some of the deeper mormon doctrine. My boyfriend always tries to find ways to do that. He'll really dig this theory, I think, I'll show it to him. You see, it's alternative concepts of God like these that I can consider. I am an atheist to certain concepts of God, just as you are, and sometimes an agnostic deist when it comes to more sensible models. My goal is always to eliminate dogma, so it is important for me to have these kinda of conversations with religious people, to keep me in check. Atheists are wonderful people, I love my friends, but sometimes we think too similarly and there isn't a lot of growth happening. And that was why I left Mormonism in the first place, so I would stop surrounding myself with people who only confirmed my world view, never challenged it. If I continued to do that, I would be something of a hypocrite, wouldn't I. I left Mormonism because I was tired of feeling better/righter than the whole world. It made me less compassionate. It made me less understanding. I felt that only mormons had meaningful lives. It also caused me pain, the ideas presented to me about my roles. I just wasn't good as a mormon. The funny thing is, the more I let go of my old beliefs, the more "christlike" I became. It was fascinating to be able to watch myself finally live the principles taught in the gospel, when I stopped holding to the gospel so tightly. Weird irony, I guess.


 Seth - I appreciate your honesty and opinions Believe me, regardless of whether or not God exists, it doesn't make this life any more simple. There are an infinite amount of challenges that we can go through. I believe you when you say that you feel that letting go of the gospel helped you be more "christlike".  I don't believe that this life is simple or easy at all.

 I also believe in Satan obviously. I believe that Satan has a lot more power than we understand. I think that a lot of Satan's power can be explained in the book of Job. Satan has the ability to get permission from God to do things in our lives to challenge our faith. I believe that each of us mormons is a target of Satan and he uses different tactics to weaken us.

 I can imagine Satan talking with God and saying, "Well God, Seth loves you because you answer his prayers. Well what if you start giving him the opposite of what he asks for? I doubt he will continue strong in the faith after a trial like that." And God gives Satan permission to do that.

 And then Satan goes to God and says, "Susie loves you because it makes sense to her, religion is intellectually stimulating to her, and she feels more christ-like. But if you make things confusing for her, take away the intellectual stimulation, and make her feel like she isn't fully christ-like, she will stop believing in you."

 And God gives Satan permission to push us to our limits, [which are sometimes more mental than physical]. Sometimes people let it get to them. Sometimes they don't.

 Additionally check out this website - 
http://www.templestudy.com/2008/09/17/nuwa-and-fuxi-in-chinese-mythology-compass-square/

 There is a picture in one of Hue Nibley's books about an ancient chinese mythology which helped me form my theories the connect the gospel with black holes.

The Chinese drawing depicts two people, male and female, who are "revolving" around each other They are obviously creatures of a higher level than we are, since they appear to have the ability to fly among the cosmos. They also have Mormon temple symbols in their hands. Thee message written on the artwork is quoted as saying, [“the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square."] What I get from this is that the ancient chinese understood Eternal Marriage, Exaltation, and even more, perhaps my Black Hole theory of revolving partners.

Could it be that entering a state of zero time is what the ancients really meant by the term "nirvana"?