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D.C.
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Feb 15, 2010 12:49AM
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Well, a lot of different gods and god-like beings have been hypothesized over the years, but there's no credible evidence to suggest that any of them exist, so we can put them in the category of unicorns, vampires and ghosts. We can hold on to some very, very remote possibility that something resembling a god might exist, but there's no reason to take this remote possibility seriously, and so, for all intents and purposes, we can consider god to not exist.
yes god does exist but we cannot figure out entirely how he works his creation the world and all that are in it are his - there are unexplained miracles in my life and others due to him
Whether a god or gods exist is a debatable. Those who believe will not be swayed regardless of the fact that there is no credible evidence for the existence of god or gods. The more pertinent question is whether He or She or Them is anything like what the various religions attribute to these supernatural beings since they all have different opinions. In addition, most of the so-called Holy Books are self contradictory.
Tjlerkin, in a previous post, you alluded to miracles in your life that you attributed to god. How can you be sure that the supernatural entity you call god had anything to do with it?
no explanation for when i had a stroke with mumbling and lose of the left side then within a day all was coming back and the mri taken as soon as i got to the hospital said the right hemisphere was totally dead should not have been walking or talking - just one of many people just try to ignore so they can live without any restirctions
Without any "restirctions?" Meaning what?
I believe in fate and faith. I think if someone believes good will happen and has a positive outlook a situation will eventually get better. My prayers ALWAYS are anwered (usually positively), I don't know if that is luck or a god. I also love praying to the ancient Greecian gods, it makes life so much more interesting.
The positive outlook can be achieved without having to thank a spirit for it. Positivity itself can be enough.
Religious people always speak of having "faith." But, what is faith except believing in something for no rational reason. Adris says his prayers are always answered. He is a lucky person. I know a lot of people who pray and their prayers are seldom answered. Somehow I think Adris simply doesn't recall those times when his prayers were not answered. I too am a lucky person, but I don't pray at all.
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/Really, I think a lot of amputees pray to get their limbs back. Yet, no limb has ever grown. Does God hate amputees?
Although I am an atheist, I figure that it's all right to believe in any silly thing you want, such as the existence of a "higher power." I too believe in some things that may or may not be true, such as quantum theory and relativity. What I resent about some religious people is some of the awful crimes they commit in the name of religion, their bigotry towards religions other than their own and their insistence that their views are the only correct one and that everyone should follow the rules that their particular religion has deemed moral.
Well, for one I'm a she :) And two, maybe I don't but I really don't pray for big things. My prayers tend to be petty and selfish. When I pray for big things like food for the starved, it's hard to know if my prayer was answered. I think it's someone's right to think whatever they want. Even if it offends me (like thinking all women are crazy and orphans are criminals).
"I figure that it's all right to believe in any silly thing you want, such as the existence of a "higher power.""http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/02/04...
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/30...
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/12...
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/10...
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/01...
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/12/30...
Is religion really so harmless?
I think The Virgin Mary is so much more approachable than Jesus or God. Women are easier to consider praying to than men. Anyone agree?
Lorna wrote: "I think The Virgin Mary is so much more approachable than Jesus or God. Women are easier to consider praying to than men. Anyone agree?"Yes i agree with you 100%. When i use to believe in the churches god and i would prey i would always talk to The Virgin Mary than Jesus or God. I would always turn to her and confide in her. But that was a long time ago. Maybe 4 or 5 years since the last time i really got on my knees at the end of my bed to Prey.
Plus she was human. Much more easy to relate to!
Lorna wrote: "Plus she was human. Much more easy to relate to!"Yup. She lived through the temptations that we face even today. It might not have been as bad back then but i do believe it took a strog woman to tell her husband she does not want to have sex. Which is one of the main reasons why God chose her.
Ok so do you believe in the churches god. the ten comandments. things like that?
Um......no, I don't..... I look at it as fiction. I was just saying, if I were religious, I'd be Catholic lol
I would say i dont either. Its hard for me to believe in someone who asks a person to sacrifice there child to prove their faith. Or not accept a child into heavon who has not been bathtized.
Dude, I don't pray. lol. It's only a story.As a character, I like her the best.
From the interior, humankind can be as ugly as they choose to be. I just can't imagine God choosing anything but beauty. But I know of a certainty, that men and women often choose to be horrid; and, they often choose to be separate from and unknown to any God who would command internal beauty. They would rather trust in their own mental pictures, even if they were of deception and illusion, rather than abandon themselves to One who might require them to be utterly good. Often people don't want to be good. It is all by degree of course; but for many, God should not and cannot exist, for interior ugliness would have to be scrubbed away, forgiven, and transformed into true loveliness to be acceptable to One who never chooses anything but beauty. So as long as choice of interpretive thought life exists, God is also a choice. Does everyone wonder if the ability to choose will ever be swallowed up in an eternal and inescapable reality? Or do those thoughts only arise in those who hope in everlasting beauty?
Those thoughts certainly exist in me. Me who bloody thinks about everything all the time. Annoying...As for people who would rather trust in their own mental pictures rather than abandon themselves to a God...that's the point. How can we know which is the bigger deception? There's no proof that any gods exist, that's why people choose not to 'abandon' themselves to something that may or may not be real.
If I were to 'abandon myself' to anything, I'd want to be 200% sure that it was reality. For example: I abandon myself to the belief that chocolate is delicious. It's a certainty.
Food for thought: why worry about which is a bigger deception if you have no desire to become like what you might imagine God would want? If you really wish to be without God, then why ask the question? I often wonder why people might have an inkling of doubt concerning the vast myriad of deceptions outside of God, and yet think little of utterly abandoning themselves to a life without God? Why aren't the paths outside of God questioned and disbelieved as much as the paths of God?This interrogatory is really rhetorical in nature, because my real point is: those who do not find God really don't want to. It is all a choice of the heart - if the heart is defined as what one truly desires. So, if you don't desire God - why bother to question His existence? If the only reasoning to want to know if God is real, is some nagging fear of Hell, or some other form of eternal loss, why find out, if the things of Hell and eternal loss are what one really desires? If one became certain of God, would they really abandon a life of sin to follow Him? And I have to ask this question of those who say they believe and do not follow His teachings: - do you really believe?
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that "He that hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled." He could just as easily have said, "He that hungers and thirsts after unrighteousness shall be consumed by it." Both would be true. There are thousands of religions, and in today's world, millions of idols - if an idol is defined as what one adores [or fears and pays homage to:]: which one honestly would have to say was mostly the self (there are not many selfless people around today - some, not many). But beliefs are built around what one desires. So if you have no desire to become, or be, any of the things Jesus portrayed on the earth, why question His existence? I have to exclude, of course, those who hate God, or hate the idea of God and are bent on irradicating it, i.e. true anti-Christs like Nietzsche so vehemently self-proclaimed. But to the rest: really, why bother questioning?
The heart is the heart of the matter.
I often wonder why people might have an inkling of doubt concerning the vast myriad of deceptions outside of God, and yet think little of utterly abandoning themselves to a life without God?I don't know what you mean by "deceptions outside of God," but in my experience it is quite the opposite: religion is the deception. I am not "abandoned" to a life without God; I am liberated.
Why aren't the paths outside of God questioned and disbelieved as much as the paths of God?
Isn't that what you're doing right now? Questioning it? What exactly do the "paths outside of God" consist of that should be called into question? We do the same things religious people do: eat, sleep, go to work, take care of our families, go to a movie on the weekends, etc. If we're going to "question" those things, we should question them for all people, not just atheists. The only difference is that we stay home on Sundays and don't say prayers before dinner.
Furthermore, all people follow the "paths outside of God" for almost all gods. Christians follow a "path outside of" Zeus, Thor, Vishnu, Osiris, etc. Should you be be called into question for taking that path? Or is the path outside of your god the only path that should be questioned?
those who do not find God really don't want to.
This isn't true. If there were a god - an all-powerful being capable of delivering me to either eternal happiness or eternal suffering, for example - I would absolutely want to know. There is simply no compelling evidence for me to believe in any god; there is not even enough evidence to narrow a search down from the infinite number of possible gods, superbeings, cosmic forces, etc., that I would want to know about. What exactly is my search for a god supposed to consist of, anyway?
If the only reasoning to want to know if God is real, is some nagging fear of Hell, or some other form of eternal loss, why find out, if the things of Hell and eternal loss are what one really desires?
Who wants "the things of Hell and eternal loss"? I certainly don't, nor do I know a single atheist who does.
But beliefs are built around what one desires.
This is problematic. Beliefs should not be "built around what one desires." This leads to confirmation bias, self-deception and delusion, etc. I desire for a steady diet of bacon, cheese and butter to be healthy. Should I then, because I desire it, believe it? Of course not. I'll die before I hit 40 if I do that. Belief should be built around what is demonstrably true or false, in spite of desire. Any attempt to formulate beliefs - i.e. determine what is actually true - should be objective and therefore completely divorced from desire, opinion, etc.
Belief should be built around what is demonstrably true or false, in spite of desire. Any attempt to formulate beliefs - i.e. determine what is actually true - should be objective and therefore completely divorced from desire, opinion, etc.But beliefs are not built around what is demonstrably true or false. People, calling themselves aetheists or christians, knowingly believe lies every day. Bias, self-deception, and delusion are not owned only by so-called christians. I would venture that 95% of the world lives in bias, self-deception, and delusion.
Beliefs are in practice absolutely built around what people desire. So, desire whatever you wish for, and your beliefs will follow be they deception or otherwise. Beliefs swarm around desires and they always have and always will. Just making the statement "beliefs should not be ..." doesn't change the reality that they are.
If you don't believe in God, I would have to conclude that in all honesty, you don't want to. A great desire to find God, does not lead to aetheism. A great desire to prove there is no God absolutely does lead to aetheism. If you love (desire) the things that you are almost certain that God would not love, and you really don't want to give them up, then you will not even begin a search for a God that might require that you change. I agree that it is really problematic, but true none-the-less: beliefs do follow desires.
If there were a god - an all-powerful being capable of delivering me to either eternal happiness or eternal suffering, for example - I would absolutely want to know.
Why would you want to know? If you did know, could you conceive of yourself changing your behavior as a result? Does that idea bother you? Do you want to know so badly that you seek God or do you want to know just in case something bad my happen?
Again, I ask: why question whether there is a God or not if one has no desire to know Him or seek Him? If you'd rather that God not be God, then why ask? I say go after that which you desire deep within.
But beliefs are not built around what is demonstrably true or false. People, calling themselves aetheists or christians, knowingly believe lies every day.Well this is a bold statement. What lies do you suppose I "knowingly believe"? Most of the people I know actually care about what is true and what isn't.
Listen, it's one thing to say that people are not always correct in their beliefs, that people of have biases, that people make logical errors, etc. I don't contest this. But it's another thing altogether to suggest that because we naturally are not perfectly objective, we should just throw our hands up and believe whatever the hell we want, with no regard for whether or not it might be true.
If you don't believe in God, I would have to conclude that in all honesty, you don't want to.
This is just nonsense, or it is a fundamental lack of understand on your part of atheists. If there is a supreme being who can inflict upon me infinite suffering, why on Earth would I not want to know he exists?
If you love (desire) the things that you are almost certain that God would not love, and you really don't want to give them up, then you will not even begin a search for a God that might require that you change.
How the hell would I be "almost certain" about what God would or wouldn't love if I don't believe he exists? By your logic, in order to not believe in God, I first have to believe in God, and know what he wants, and then decide that I'd rather he didn't exist, and then, poof, I no longer believe something is true that I know is true.
If you did know, could you conceive of yourself changing your behavior as a result?
Well, first off, what behavior do you suppose I would need to change? What I infer from your posts is that you have a horribly skewed view of atheists. You assume that we all believe in and understand God, but we love "sin" so much that we need to force God out of our minds in order to lead our sinful lives. This is a baseless and blatantly false assumption.
Secondly, of course I could change my behavior. If I knew (and understand that knowing is not the same as simply deciding that something is so for no reason) that behaving a certain way would mean the difference between eternal suffering and eternal happiness, of course I would try as hard as I could to change my behavior. I'm sure you would probably rather believe that I wouldn't or couldn't, because it makes you feel better about yourself that you are one of the few who is strong enough to walk the righteous path, but it is simply not true.
Do you want to know so badly that you seek God or do you want to know just in case something bad my happen?
Again, the critical question you failed to answer: How do I "seek God"? More importantly, which god(s) do I seek?
There have been hundreds or thousands of gods that have been worshiped throughout human history. And as possible as it is that any of those gods existed, it's also possible that none of them did, but some other, as-yet unimagined god exists. So there are literally an infinite number of gods one could decide to seek. So, again, which one(s) do I pick and how do I seek them?
I'm assuming you will answer that I should seek the Christian God. Basically, in order to "seek" God, I first have to already believe that there is a God, and believe that this particular God is the true God. Then once I already believe in God, I can "seek" him and then, at the end of this quest (whatever it consists of) I will arrive at the state I began at: believing in this particular God. This is a horrible circle.
I never realized that I should conclusively know (and therefore believe) that godless people are the only honest, sincere, thoughtful, altruistic,and by default, the most intelligent people on the face of the earth.All opinions offered in objection must therefore automatically fail as they have no merit whatsoever.
Why bother arguing or asking about God?
Oh, and by the way, refusing to acknowledge that if you don't believe in God also means that you don't want to, is a deception itself. Are you trying to make us believe that you want to believe in God but just don't yet?
No, you don't want to believe in God and don't believe is the truth. Saying otherwise would just place you in the 95% plus category of those who knowingly believe lies everyday. (Unless of course you don't believe it yourself and are simply lying for our sakes)
Oh wait, I see the conditional answer now: "ifthere were a god . . . I would absolutely want to know." But I guess I have to come to the same conclusion, since you knowingly gave an answer that would make my statement appear false, even while not actually denying what I said.
So, let me restate it to be as emphatic as possible: You do not currently want to believe in God. You only want to believe in God if it is proven He exists. You do not have a current desire to believe in God. I must conclude and state again, this time with clarity, that you do not currently want, wish, desire, hope, care to, etc., etc., believe in God. You don't want to. You might eventually want to, but you currently don't want to. Your desire to believe in God is in a state of readiness should His ability to cast you into Hell become known, but it is not currently active. Is that clear enough? If you don't currently believe in God, you also don't currently want to. Is it so hard for me to conclude that you don't want to believe in God? (And answering with a future conditional statement will be considered as just what it is: avoiding the question of what you currently desire: to not believe)
Beliefs do follow desires. They are never objectively independent of it. A person who believes in God, wants to believe in God. A person who does not believe in God, does not want to. They aren't sitting in a state of wanting to believe in God, but just can't. They don't want to.
I never realized that I should conclusively know (and therefore believe) that godless people are the only honest, sincere, thoughtful, altruistic,and by default, the most intelligent people on the face of the earth. I don't know what this is in reference to. I certainly never said, nor implied, that atheists are "the only honest, sincere, thoughtful, altruistic, and by default, the most intelligent people on the face of the earth." I have never invoked any "authority" as an atheist, smart person, scientist, etc. as defense of my positions. I use only reason.
All opinions offered in objection must therefore automatically fail as they have no merit whatsoever.
Again, I haven't ever dismissed your arguments on the basis of inherent lack of merit (nor do I believe that anyone's arguments inherently lack merit). Instead, I demonstrate the flaws in your arguments. To wit:
refusing to acknowledge that if you don't believe in God also means that you don't want to, is a deception itself. Are you trying to make us believe that you want to believe in God but just don't yet?
It isn't that I do or do not want to believe in God. It's that I want to believe in (i.e. know and understand) whatever is true and not believe anything that isn't true. So, if there is a god, I want to believe in it. That's the key: if there is a god . You seem to be missing this bit. It seems built into your system of thought that there irrefutably is a god, and that everyone on some level knows this, whether they believe it or not. This is simply not the case. I don't have knowledge that God exists and yet somehow choose to not "believe in" him. Rather, I have no reason to believe that the Christian God, the Hindu gods, unicorns, etc. exist.
The mistake you make is in assuming that anything I don't believe I don't want to believe, which means that anything I do want to believe I could believe. This is not the case. I want to believe that behind me right now is a box full of money. But I can't believe this, because I have no reason to, and a very good reason to believe it is not so.
No, you don't want to believe in God and don't believe is the truth. Saying otherwise would just place you in the 95% plus category of those who knowingly believe lies everyday.
I'm pretty sure that 88% of Christians simply invent statistics to suit their purposes.
But I guess I have to come to the same conclusion, since you knowingly gave an answer that would make my statement appear false, even while not actually denying what I said.
I don't know what you're talking about here. I don't know what statement of yours you're referring to, but I didn't "knowingly give" any answers to make any of your statements "appear" false. I pointed out where your statements about me are false.
So, let me restate it to be as emphatic as possible: You do not currently want to believe in God.
Let me ask you a question. Why does this "logic" of yours - that anything I don't believe in I don't want to believe in - only apply to the specific god that you personally happen to believe in? Should it not also be the case that you don't want to believe in Vishnu? That you don't want to believe in Osiris? That you don't want to believe in unicorns? That you don't want to believe in Thor? That you don't want to believe in bigfoot? That you don't want to believe in Zeus? And on and on and on...?
You only want to believe in God if it is proven He exists.
Why should I believe something is true if there is no reason to think that it is true?
Is that clear enough? If you don't currently believe in God, you also don't currently want to. Is it so hard for me to conclude that you don't want to believe in God? (And answering with a future conditional statement will be considered as just what it is: avoiding the question of what you currently desire: to not believe)
Jesus Christ, how obtuse are you? Your entire system of thought is built on the presumption that God exists, and that every opinion everyone on Earth forms on the matter is built from this same presumption. It isn't a matter of wanting to believe in God. It is the fact that I have no reason whatsoever to even consider the possibility that God exists any more than I have a reason to consider the possibility that Ganesh or leprechauns exist.
Beliefs do follow desires. They are never objectively independent of it.
No, they don't. Do you believe in gravity because you want it to exist? Do you believe that eating too much butter, red meat, cheese, etc. will kill you because you want that to be so? I strongly doubt it. Who would desire that delicious food be lethal? We believe these things because there is evidence to support them. Reality does not follow desire. What is true is what is true, regardless of what we want to be true. Most people of even imbecilic intelligence can understand this basic fact. You, somehow, do not.
So let's try an experiment. I hope that when you read this, you suddenly transform into a bucket full of marbles. I really really desire for this to happen. So, I believe it will happen. Since I hope for it, and therefore believe it, reality must bend to my desires and transform you into a bucket of marbles, right? Right? I expect no reply, as you are now a bucket of marbles.
On the off chance that you haven't turned into a bucket of marbles (although, how can that be possible, since reality derives from my personal desires, obviously) let me reiterate the critical questions you have ignored twice now:How exactly does one "seek" God? What does this quest consist of? And, which god exactly should I seek? Poseidon? Nirankar? Zoroaster? Quetzalcoatl? Ahsonnutli? How do I decide which god or gods to seek?
