This Is Why Atheists Don't Believe In God-Video, what one religious person thinks.

[Eko]

[RockRaven]

1. That #1 on his list of 4 is in "sort of right but not at all in the way he means" territory

"Educated into it" and then he specifically mentions science, philosophy, and history...

Given the context he sure seems to mean "indoctrinated" or "told" or the like. IOW imposed from the outside, by an authority. Instead of, you know, education (i.e. knowledge, understanding, critical thinking skills).

But yeah, man, knowing stuff about science and/or philosophy and/or history makes your apologetics make a f-ing lot less sense than when you're naive. That says more about your dogshit apologetics' effects on well informed people than it does about brainwashing in schools.

[Eko]

2. I think I was in 7th grade

Taking a ap history course and we were studying Greek history. I went to my mom and asked her why those gods were made up but hers was not. She had no answer. That was my first aha moment in my becoming an Atheist.
Eko

[sanatanadharma]

3. As long as religion and God are limited Christian concepts, the ??'s will never be answered

Anyone, anywhere, at any time talking about, teaching about, preaching to, or otherwise telling me about God had best first define the term. God is a meaningless word, or more accurately a name for a widely and poorly presented concept (God, Divinity, Spirit, Life, Kriishna...).

So, whatever side of the fence one is on, I'd dearly like to know what God is. Not what God did or will do or deigns to do.
Tell me about the very essence and nature of God, qua sine non God. God without adjectival attributes like 'creator'.

Until there is a common understanding about what is affirmed or denied, both affirmation and denial remain non-verifiable statements and are thus equal.

[anciano]

4. Interesting post ....

IMO there can never be a "common understanding" because the subject of the inquiry is beyond "human understanding."
Some people believe in a personal anthropomorphic supernatural divinity. Others believe in an impersonal force or energy that permeates and sustains the universe. And so on and so forth.
But there never has been a definitive answer to the question of what God is because the complexity of such a "being", "force" or "entity" would be unfathomable to human understanding. As mortals we are only endowed with enough understanding to be able to function as mortals.

[sanatanadharma]

5. Perhaps not so inexplicable.

The source of the oak tree is not outside of the acorn and the acorn is of the tree. The answer to ultimate mysteries are, as though, a Mobius Strip of increasing clarity and identity.

We all know that 'conscious-beingnessness' exists and is the essence of our 'internal self awareness', our essence, our nature, not equal to the ideas.
That which is born is existent-consciousness, likely there before baby's first breath and certainly there before the baby's brain is filled with stuff that is not equivalent to the 'born-being'.
None-the-less the born-being is taught to think the world is a certain way. It is like family hypnosis precedes family therapy.

If existence exists and consciousness exists, the explanation for them must be existent and conscious. The 'what-it-is' of existence and of consciousness can't be an added on to something else, a 'could-be-might-not be' attribute added to a 'is-ness' that is otherwise a non-existent and non-conscious (what?). Nothing comes into being, formed and defined, before its own existence. Nothing can be said to be known without affirming the 'consciousness' that knows. It is not just all robots and file drawers. Beyond food, drink, shelter, and security all desires are elaborated, grasped, pursued, enjoyed by 'conscious-beingness', not the inert, consciousness-less vectors and forces of primordial energy.

Everything known to us and and to science and to far-seeing space probes and to seekers of the mystery of the sub-atomic and of then infinitely grand universe; all knowledge is possible only due to and by 'existent-consciousness'.
All else is but lever and tool to build bigger databases of knowledge.

To know "Self" is to know Divinity. But keep in mind that everything we can seemingly know and say about the "Self" is not the "Self". Descriptions are costumes, not revelations of the self-nature.
This is due to the subjective-objective problem of the knower-known dilemma and the need for a way, a valid means of knowledge (how do we know what we know?)

Divinity had an itch and sneezed. No one will ever get a better answer to the mystery of God-Creation. But if they do, the answer will be known in consciousness.

[anciano]

6. One additional observation for consideration....

The oak tree/acorn analogy and the "to know 'Self' is to know Divinity" thought that you included above would seem to imply the idea of universal oneness, a concept that I personally embrace.
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, was an early proponent of universal oneness, believing that everything is interconnected and that all things including humans are continually and eternally being recycled back into the larger whole.
Following that train of thought we actually have no beginning or end, we are eternal in both directions, but at the human level of awareness have a limited understanding of the full range and scope of universal cosmic consciousness.
So if we ever get the answer to the mystery of what God is, I do agree that it will be in consciousness, but at a level that will transcend our temporal human experience.

[sanatanadharma]

7. Claro que S, transcendence is the name of the game

It is only one (name your elephant) all the way down, in, out, before, after, ... because

Not just interconnected, but just one what-it-is that makes all possible; cause and effect, timelessness and bliss.
The one is the motion picture screen without which ignored background, the one movie-projector could reveal nothing.
The one is the audience for the performance, so to speak.
Namaste