[Serious]Why are you not a believer of the existence of God

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Originally Posted by CVMichael

I agree with everything you said in the previous post. As I said before, we are here to learn our lessons, this is our back-yard, our testing ground...


Could I have the complete thing ?

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Here's the letter in an attachment. I was once a Trappist (an order in the Catholic Church) monk but only for 2 years. I sent the letter to the abbots of all the Trappist monasteries in the US and a few outside of the US. I had an experience that brought me out of the monastery that I talk about in the letter. The quotes from Yogananda went with the letter and there's also the Primetime story about the boy and a recommended reading list that is at the end of a list of quotes that is similar to the other list of quotes you find here.

In the long letter I make somewhat of a sales pitch for the path that I follow, Self-Realization Fellowship. I think though that there are many good paths that lead to God-Realization. Yogananda said, "All paths are paths to God because ultimately there is no other place for the soul to go. Everything has come out of God and must go back to Him."

Warning. The letter is 22 pages long.

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Originally Posted by MarMan

That is close to the theory I am working on. The fabric of the universe or the ether or the meeka particles (I made that word up [meeka] to simplify some of my discussions where it was requested of me to name what I was speaking of) could be what we perceive of as God. It could be guided by some sort of intelligence that is too advanced for us to comprehend. Also the ether has failed every test to detect it, yet there is more circumstantial evidence to indicate it exists then not. That could be where science and religion meet, but scientists can't do anything on faith. And you can not measure something that is a fraction of the size of an electron, you just have to believe.

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Have you read anything about I Ching and the Chi - the Chinese knew of the thread - the power - the flow of the universe thousands of years ago.

We keep blowing up tiny particles - that we cannot see - and then tell everyone that we watches traces of those particiles do this or that.

A bit of faith is required by these scientists - wouldn't you say?

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Originally Posted by szlamany

A bit of faith is required by these scientists - wouldn't you say?

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No I wouldn't. They just report what they find. I don't see any faith in that. Unless you are talking about something else?

Agreed. While some claim to marry faith and science, I believe they are as opposite as night and day.

In faith, you believe in the existence of something based on a feeling. Data and explanation are not required and quite often not desired.

In science, you prove theories with data and only once it cannot be disputed is it accepted as fact. Nothing "just is" in science - it all has a foundation on observed and measured phenomena.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Rat

Agreed. While some claim to marry faith and science, I believe they are as opposite as night and day.

In faith, you believe in the existence of something based on a feeling. Data and explanation are not required and quite often not desired.

In science, you prove theories with data and only once it cannot be disputed is it accepted as fact. Nothing "just is" in science - it all has a foundation on observed and measured phenomena.

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and let's not forget all the things science agreed on in the past that no longer are accepted as valid. Ether for example.

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

and let's not forget all the things science agreed on in the past that no longer are accepted as valid. Ether for example.

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I don't think science EVER believed in ether. It has been a theory that fizzled out and died.

There have been some things - but that's the beauty of science. It held true for the proofs of the time. Eventually, with more detailed measurements or with then-undiscovered fields of science, it was discovered things had to be changed. So by running the tests again, but with the new data, the definition is updated / changed / superseded. But it's always based on data, measurement and reasoned analysis.

There are no scientific proofs that are "that's just the way it is. Just because I think / feel it is." There's a foundation that can be measured and quantified first.

There has been a revival of the most viewed threads, perhaps it is high time to up this also. =)

<Sigh> This was back in the days when you could have a decent discussion about a controversial topic in CC. I miss those days.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

<Sigh> This was back in the days when you could have a decent discussion about a controversial topic in CC. I miss those days.

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I've been reading through my old posts, stumbled upon this discussion:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...09-Human-Brain
(and that was only 2 years ago)

Oh, that were the days.

Jesus loves you. My gardener Jesus wanted me to let you guys know.

There is no good or evil by nature. There are no good or evil animals or plants, so how could we humans be good or evil ? just because we are intelligent? We all born good, it's life what makes us evil sometimes (or do evil things to others or to ourselves), events in our lives that we can't even control, so why would we go to hell if there's been evil actions in our lives? It's not our fault! it has no sense at all from this point of view. There is no hell, there is no devil, there is no heaven..but there might be a God anyway, a creator, for those who think that life, the universe and all its wonders can not have been created just by chance.

Well I've often thought of it like this: which came first the chicken or the egg? Its an infinite loop because for there to be an egg there has to be a chicken and for there to be a chicken there has to have been an egg. So if a god created everything, what created the god?

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Originally Posted by dclamp

Jesus loves you. My gardener Jesus wanted me to let you guys know.

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Jesus the son of the almighty dictator.

I am actually an atheist because of something that I saw on this site. Last time I posted on this thread I wasn't sure what I was. Good job VBF.

As to answer the original question, I am an atheist because I do not consider religion compatible with what I have observed in the natural world.

I can expan on this if anyone wanted me to, but I'm on my phone at this moment

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Originally Posted by Justa Lol

Well I've often thought of it like this: which came first the chicken or the egg? Its an infinite loop because for there to be an egg there has to be a chicken and for there to be a chicken there has to have been an egg. So if a god created everything, what created the god?

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I am a God believer and in all honesty I also have the same question as you and no one as of date has given me a satisfactory answer but I am more inclined to believe of God creating everything than the Big Bang theory, I just can't comprehend how everything is the way they are because of pure chance, it should have been designed by a very intelligent one and that is God. I really started this thread in order for me to try putting myself in the minds of atheists but I guess we just have different beliefs. If you don't believe in God and He is true and hell is true then you should suffer in the end but if He is not true and you believed in Him, what will happen to you after you die?

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Originally Posted by dee-u

I am a God believer and in all honesty I also have the same question as you and no one as of date has given me a satisfactory answer but I am more inclined to believe of God creating everything than the Big Bang theory, I just can't comprehend how everything is the way they are because of pure chance, it should have been designed by a very intelligent one and that is God. I really started this thread in order for me to try putting myself in the minds of atheists but I guess we just have different beliefs. If you don't believe in God and He is true and hell is true then you should suffer in the end but if He is not true and you believed in Him, what will happen to you after you die?

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I've always thought of human beings and all other animals on this planet as robots with feelings... whenever they die, the powers out, eternal nothingness... truth is that there is only 1 way to find out and this way is to die, unless this god proves him/her/it-self to be existent, so if you're curious enough... lol

also i feel like i need to note that i'm not an atheist.. i'm agnostic, because i don't deny the possibility of the existence, but i need proof before believing.

Isn't everything around you a proof?

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Originally Posted by dee-u

Isn't everything around you a proof?

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yes, its proof.. but proof of which theory i don't know.

If there is a god, and he will torture you forever if you choose to believe in the wrong one, then that will be a massive disappointment for all except one or two specific groups within the population. Frankly, any God that is not good should not be worshipped. Any God that IS good will not make such an arbitrary requirement to avoid eternal torture. Therefore, I don't see how you can have it both ways. In short, I don't believe that there is a God that would require us to worship them who we should also worship.

As for chance, why not believe it possible? If everything were perfect, then you might wonder how it could get that way. When it comes to animals, things are FAR from perfect. Some insects use sexual reproduction despite the fact that they lack the anatomy for it. The male just pokes a hole through the wall of the other (I don't think there are actual genders, actually), and if the target survives...they are pregnant, but survival is kind of hit or miss. What intelligent designer came up with THAT brilliant plan?

I believe in elephants.

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Originally Posted by BlindSniper

I am actually an atheist because of something that I saw on this site. Last time I posted on this thread I wasn't sure what I was. Good job VBF.

As to answer the original question, I am an atheist because I do not consider religion compatible with what I have observed in the natural world.

I can expan on this if anyone wanted me to, but I'm on my phone at this moment

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I thought you were a BlindSniper!

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

If there is a god, and he will torture you forever if you choose to believe in the wrong one, then that will be a massive disappointment for all except one or two specific groups within the population. Frankly, any God that is not good should not be worshipped. Any God that IS good will not make such an arbitrary requirement to avoid eternal torture. Therefore, I don't see how you can have it both ways. In short, I don't believe that there is a God that would require us to worship them who we should also worship.

As for chance, why not believe it possible? If everything were perfect, then you might wonder how it could get that way. When it comes to animals, things are FAR from perfect. Some insects use sexual reproduction despite the fact that they lack the anatomy for it. The male just pokes a hole through the wall of the other (I don't think there are actual genders, actually), and if the target survives...they are pregnant, but survival is kind of hit or miss. What intelligent designer came up with THAT brilliant plan?

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It is our choice if we want to end up in hell, I don't think that it necessarily means the God is not good, we have the free will but it just have a consequence when our choices are wrong. Not everything is perfect (I don't think I ever said that) but I just cannot conceive the idea that things came into existence just from pure chance or evolution.

We are predominantly Catholic here but I am not a Catholic even though my parents are. Perhaps we can compare our cultures? Is your neighborhood/relatives 'atheists' also? I never met an atheist before but only in this forum so I was curious as to how an atheist thinks.

Frankly, we never discussed it in any detail. None of my family professed any particular belief one way or another. I think that would be pretty nearly the definition of agnostic as in: Don't know. Not going to dwell on it.

We did attend church, but it was the Unitarian church and we attended roughly once a year. I'm still not sure why.

As for evolution, after working with it in a few computer programs, I have no doubt that it could result in the diversity of life we see today. Once you have written a few genetic algorithms and seen how they solve problems that you can't solve, it's clear that what we see in the world is entirely plausible as a result of a highly un-intelligent process. Now, if you are talking about the appearance of life on this planet versus other planets, that would be a different issue. There is speculation that life could be likely on planets within certain parameters, but at this point we have N = 1, which is not enough evidence to prove anything one way or another. We need better sensors just to be able to answer the question of whether or not planets of this size and distance from a sun of this type are common. We'd need FAR better sensors than that to determine whether or not life exists on such planets, and it is entirely possible that, given the distances involved, we will never have sensors good enough to answer that question. So, it may be that the existence of life at all is a miracle, but the life that we see today can't be considered to be miraculous once you are well acquainted with a process that can produce it.

As for my beliefs, I'm totally on the fence. While I see no need for a God, I also see that the picture isn't complete, and God could very easily exist. In fact, I feel that it is quite likely that the world is either 8 or 11 dimensions, and God need be nothing more than a 5th dimensional being for whom we are the toys. This became clear from some work I was doing with robotics. I could make a robot that was clearly 3 dimensional, but it could only perceive the world in 2 dimensions. After thinking about how it would interact with the world around it, I realized that it would see 'spooky behavior at a distance', similar to what we see as quantum entanglement. It would see this in its interaction with my table, where four disconnected items would be totally entangled. Push on one and the other three moved wherever they were in space. The bot, which could not perceive the 3rd dimension, would not be able to understand this any better than we can understand quantum entanglement. However, since we perceive 3 dimensions, it is obvious to us why the four table legs move in unison. Similarly, if there was a fifth dimensional being, it might see our world as obvious, but we can't imagine that any better than the 2D bot could imagine the top of the table. Heck, it wouldn't have a concept for "top", let alone "up".

Therefore, God could just be at a higher dimension, which means that God could have a God that was a sixth dimensional being, and so on. However, it doesn't prove that God could, or does, exist. Better yet, further thinking about the bot shows that it is entirely possible that there is a God, but that God doesn't even know that we exist, let alone care that we do. It's actually a fairly compelling argument, as it would explain a lot of things that current religions have a hard time dealing with, such as the death of kids, terrorist attacks, tsunamis, and the like. I've written enough, though. I suppose that the bottom line is this: There are lots of possibilities and I see no good reason to choose one over another, so I don't worry about it. If there is life after death....I guess it won't remain a mystery forever. For now, I can wait.

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Originally Posted by Nightwalker83

I thought you were a BlindSniper!

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Sniping blind is not an act of faith, it is an act of skill.

I personally find a 'God' to be a simplistic reasoning for the unknown. When you talk about a God, I'd question you on what you think a God is. Is it a person? Is it anything at all? How does it do what you think he/she/it does? It's very easy to say that God did something you have no explanation for, what makes me think this whole religion thing is just an antiquated way of saying stop your critical thinking and do your slave work.

I'm not doubting there is an origin to the universe, but I can't possibly imagine what it would be. And I'm fine with the unknown.

And then there's the whole sociocultural aspect of the religion, which for the most part I don't think is wrong. When considering the catholic commandments, I'm perfectly fine raising any children I might have one day with those values in mind.

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Originally Posted by TheBigB

I personally find a 'God' to be a simplistic reasoning for the unknown.

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The ultimate excuse or way out of trying to explain why/how something happened.

Here is one thing I usually don’t see come up in these types of discussions is this. Just for arguments sake let’s say an intelligent being, or god, created the world. What kind of sadist would set something like this up? Just about everything thing on this planet lives on the death of other things on this planet. For example the food chain, bacteria or viruses that destroy the host, and that basically to live something else has to die. It is a blood bath out there every moment of every day. What kind of a sick twist would come up with that?

Attachment 98135
Well...


In a serious tone..
My official title I like to give myself is an agnostic atheist. With that said, I do not deny the possibility for a god existing. BUT I do not believe that any of the religions created by mankind have got correct description of the god that's existence I allow. I believe that the only god that could possibly exist would not care about the personal actions of people. Or even about the human race as a whole, Heck, he might not even know that we exist. He would not be bothered with letting ant sized creatures worship him, and he would definitely not influence events, because then we would have found him, either directly or indirectly. He would also probably have to be very smart, unfathomably so. I don't know if he would be immortal since I really don't know if anything can escape the laws of thermodynamics. Afterlife is also so flawed concept that I can almost say with certainty that there is no such thing.

So to summarize:

• God doesn't know/ doesn't care that mankind exists
• There is no afterlife
• He doesn't influence events if he knows we exists
• He would not be interested in praise by creatures that are almost infinitely less intelligent than himself
• Might or might not be alive
• Not omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent

Why would I bother myself caring if such a god exists ? So I just live my life on the assumption that no god exists and make the best of it.

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Originally Posted by BlindSniper

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So to summarize:

• God doesn't know/ doesn't care that mankind exists
• There is no afterlife
• He doesn't influence events if he knows we exists
• He would not be interested in praise by creatures that are almost infinitely less intelligent than himself
• Might or might not be alive
• Not omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent

...

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In other words, your disbelief in the existence of God - and nuances which are generally attributed to religion that worships a God - is the reason why you don't believe in God?

What I find quite mystifying is the religious zealotry that accompanies those who are opposed to the existence of God.

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What I find quite mystifying is the religious zealotry that accompanies those who are opposed to the existence of God.

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To be honest, I've often thought the same. I'm not religious myself (I could best be described as agnostic, tending gently towards atheism) but I have freinds who sit on both sides of the fence. None of my religious freinds are at all agressive and, apart from the occassional nutter handing out leaflets with menaces in the city centre, I've rarely met anyone who really forced their religious point of view at me. Most of my atheist freinds are equally reasonable and non-confrontational but there's definitely a small group who can be extremely aggressive in preaching their atheism. It's odd, why get so bunched up about something you don't believe in.

On the other hand, I don't think BlindSniper's post fell into that category for me. I read his post as a summary of his beliefs rather than a statement of "this is what is, there shall be no argument".

To me, agnosticism is really the only rational position to take when faced with a question we can't absoutely know the answer to. In fact, in a universe which still holds so many unknowns it seems just as crazy to me to state that "there definitely is no God because I can't prove his existence" as it does to say "there definitely is a God although I can't prove his existence". I think there probably isn't a God because we have a pretty good physical model that doesn't require the existence of a creator, but I'm open to having my mind changed at any time.

He probably doesn't live on a cloud though.

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Well I've often thought of it like this: which came first the chicken or the egg?

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It was the egg. A dinosaur laid it.


edit>

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For the most part this thread has been civil and respectful

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Which is pretty much a miracle given the state of CC lately. Proof of the existence of God, perhaps?

I guess something that bothers me is the President taking the oath of office on a Bible. To me it is the equivalent of asking Zeus to look after us. To me it is a sad state of affairs that so many people still believe in Gods, Devils, and the like.

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Originally Posted by TysonLPrice

I guess something that bothers me is the President taking the oath of office on a Bible. To me it is the equivalent of asking Zeus to look after us. To me it is a sad state of affairs that so many people still believe in Gods, Devils, and the like.

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Well to me, each is to his own. If one chooses to believe in something, good on them. My only problem is when they try to impose it on someone else. As for a President taking the oath on a bible, fine, but only if he chooses to. It's the choice part that I find important.

People must be free to believe what they want, but must also allow others to hold their beliefs.

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Originally Posted by TheBigB

Well to me, each is to his own. If one chooses to believe in something, good on them. My only problem is when they try to impose it on someone else. As for a President taking the oath on a bible, fine, but only if he chooses to. It's the choice part that I find important.

People must be free to believe what they want, but must also allow others to hold their beliefs.

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Understood...I guess what I mean is we wouldn't want a President that truly believed the world is flat, is only 6000 years old, and there is a Devil out there just waiting to lead us astray. At least I hope so. Having a President that believes in God is like having a President that believes in leprechauns. We might as well just let the Pope run things. That way at least the Republicans would have someone they could relate too...

Oops..broke the being nice warning :blush:

Facts - man - facts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio..._States_Senate

Seems more Democrat's in the Senate follow the Pope!

Not sure you can get the House with details - but at least the summary here shows that Catholics far from rule...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members...tates_Congress

I'm just trying to figure out if being fiscally conservative and kind of Catholic is one or two hits against me in your book??

:)

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Originally Posted by SJWhiteley

In other words, your disbelief in the existence of God - and nuances which are generally attributed to religion that worships a God - is the reason why you don't believe in God?

What I find quite mystifying is the religious zealotry that accompanies those who are opposed to the existence of God.

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No, I doubt the existence of a god because what I can't reconcile what I see in the natural world with the existance of an abrahamic God. The god(or equivalent entity) that I allow to exist would have those mentioned qualities, which gives me no reason to think he exists, or even if it does, It wouldn't change the way I lived.

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Originally Posted by szlamany

Facts - man - facts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio..._States_Senate

Seems more Democrat's in the Senate follow the Pope!

Not sure you can get the House with details - but at least the summary here shows that Catholics far from rule...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members...tates_Congress

I'm just trying to figure out if being fiscally conservative and kind of Catholic is one or two hits against me in your book??

:)

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I was talking about their propensity for young boys...

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we wouldn't want a President that truly believed the world is flat

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I think that's different from a President who believes in God though. We can empircally prove that the earth is round (or an oblate spheroid if I'm feeling pedantic) but we cannot empirically prove that there is no God. Combine that with the fact that a massive number of people on the planet believe there is a God whereas only a tiny number believe the earth is flat (and, lets face it, most of them are only having a laugh). To me that indicates that believing in God isn't actually irrational like believing in a flat earth is.

I must admit, I'm slightly uncomfortable with the introduction of any religious paraphanalia (not sure I spelt that right) into the rituals of government which, I believe, should be wholly secular but if it's just a way of displaying his sincerity in taking the oath then I don't have a real problem with it. After all, it's not important that he swears on something you believe in. It's important he swears on something he believes in.

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Having a President that believes in God is like having a President that believes in leprechauns

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What?! As an Irishman (sort of) I can assure you there's nothing wrong with believing in the little people. And they can get very nasty of you start denying their existence.:bigyello:

Well, they sure haven't been too generous with that pot o' gold.