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

[honeybee]

... which negates the claim that free willie is this magical religios related thing

Free Willie ain't no magical thingy. It's a dolphin!

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[dee-u]

Huh, resurrected again. =)

[TheBigB]

Free Willie ain't no magical thingy. It's a monkey!

I see what you did there..

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Originally Posted by TheBigB
Free Willie ain't no magical thingy. Its an arrestable offence

what ?

[EntityX]

Free Willie ain't no magical thingy. It's a Willie that's Free!

.

Let's go for a record for a quote that has been altered the most times.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I believe in God. I am Mormon.

The capitalist religion. If you look at the afterworld offerings of all major belief systems, the Mormons have the most generous 'retirement' benefits.

[honeybee]

let's go for a willie that has been freed the most times.

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[CVMichael]

I do believe in God. Does that make me a bad programmer ?

[honeybee]

I do believe in God. Does that make me a bad programmer ?

I dunno, but you could blame the bugs on God. For someone who doesn't believe in God, it's hard to take all the blame himself...

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[ecowar]

Even if you don't believe in hell it does not mean you are not going there, I don't think disbelief will mean that it will not come true.

In have to agree with the above quote:
Hypothetically, if a man standing at point-blank range points a .44 magnum at you and pulls the trigger, does not believing in the bullets existance change it's path or the end result?

I know this is an old thread that gets revived every now and then, but I wanted to add my $0.02 (ok, probably nearly worthless adjusted for inflation). I also believe in God, Dee-u. I'm glad to hear you and some of the others do as well. While I am more than willing to share my faith and beliefs with someone who wants to know, I won't share with someone against their will or if I feel like I am trying to force my personal beliefs on them. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that someone could look at all the beauty of God's creation around them and not believe.

[honeybee]

Hypothetically, if a man standing at point-blank range points a .44 magnum at you and pulls the trigger, does not believing in the bullets existance change it's path or the end result?

The man can see the gun and hopefully the bullet too. If not in action then at least when stationary. This phenomenon can be repeated and observed and verified and so can be taken as a fact.

Can you do so with God?

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[Lord Orwell]

Personally, I find it difficult to believe that someone could look at all the beauty of God's creation around them and not believe.

it's quite easy to overlook the beauty when cancer, black plague, burn victims, child molesters, famine, drought, birth defects, etc. are staring you in the face. Some manage anyway though.

[MarMan]

I believe in God because it is a common belief between many races. The people are so varied in their culture it seems unusual that so many would agree on the existence of God and disagree on most everything else once you subtract things required for the survival of the individual or species (eat, drink sex, ect).
People said a long time ago "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" before there was even any proof. It may be just a matter of time until God is proven to exist. Also God can be in any form, because all the different religions describe God differently. They may all be correct. We may just not be capable of understanding God at this time. God could be the undiscovered ether, the substance that quarks and electrons may be composed of. That would make God everywhere, invisible and quite powerful. It also would require faith, because the ether can not be directly observed or measured (there is still a debate as to whether it exists).

[honeybee]

People said a long time ago "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" before there was even any proof.

It sounds more like people observed the effect of eating apples and then coined this phrase. I haven't heard anyone saying "a mango a day keeps the doctor away", or "a melon a day keeps dehydration away" or something like that.

You cannot coin such phrases out of a vaccuum. You can only base them on your experience. All phrases in all languages are born out of experience and observations, not like a bolt of lightening out of the blue.

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[NeedSomeAnswers]

I believe in God because it is a common belief between many races.

So you believe because lots of other people believe, what about using reason, logic and rational thought to come to your own conclusion rather then follow others ?

Personally i believe in flying Pigs! they must exist somewhere.

[MarMan]

So you believe because lots of other people believe, what about using reason, logic and rational thought to come to your own conclusion rather then follow others ?

That is an incorrect statement. I tried to include more than 1 reason in the sentence, but you failed to pick up on any more than one.

There is a substantial reason, logic, rational thought, statistical analyses, common sense and probably others that I failed to mention over the course of several years . I just scratched the surface and am not writing a book for 3 reasons:

1. I don't have the time
2. I may not be able to properly explain it anyway
3. Even if I explain it, the reader may not comprehend it

You just proved #3 NeedSomeAnswers because your statement does not match anything I said (1 person does not even come close to equal many races which each one includes many people which have spanned hundreds if not thousands of years plus other factors). So you will just poke fun and stick to your opinion without adding any real thought of your own. Its a shame because sometimes you add value to discussions, not this time.

Good luck with your pigs!! You can count me out on that one

[Shaggy Hiker]

Don't let #2 or #3 stop you. No matter what you write, I can think of a book that can sit beside it on the bookshelf. You can even download it.

If I created a robot that was self aware, but not aware of me, would it eventually think of me as God? Would it contemplate its own demise, contemplate its own existence, and conclude that something must have made it? Would it consider me an evil god or a benevolent god? Would it even be willing to kill those who don't believe in it? Yet when I flick the switch, it is just as dead, and there would be no heaven waiting for it. That would be a crushing disappointment, except that it would be no longer capable of disappointment.

I would say that the foundation of human religion, at least the western versions, relies on an absolute faith in human exceptionalism. A belief that we, and we alone (though we occasionally allow in our pets, but never our food) are part of a larger plan. That we will continue after death in some way. That we have meaning. The point about the robot is that the universe could have all the meaning the most devout attribute to it, yet we might still simply end.

[MarMan]

A belief that we, and we alone (though we occasionally allow in our pets, but never our food) are part of a larger plan. That we will continue after death in some way. That we have meaning. The point about the robot is that the universe could have all the meaning the most devout attribute to it, yet we might still simply end.

None of that has anything to do with my belief in God. I see no evidence that we continue on after death in some way, that we are part of a larger plan nor that we have meaning. Those are either your beliefs or beliefs you got from somewhere and have incorrectly assumed (there's that word again) they have anything to do with my belief in God.

You are correct in that they are common across religions, so that may be where you got it from since I mentioned God was part of many religions. But let me make my belief clear so I can be properly bashed. (There's nothing worse then being improperly bashed for a belief that you do not believe in, well there are worse things.) I believe in God according to the evidence I've accumulated over the years. It just does not match anyone else's belief that I've had the pleasure to hear.
The things Shaggy mentioned are, in my opinion, an artifact of conscienceness (is that a word?) and have little if any effect on my perceived notion of God.

[MartinLiss]

I believe in God because it is a common belief between many races. The people are so varied in their culture it seems unusual that so many would agree on the existence of God and disagree on most everything else once you subtract things required for the survival of the individual or species (eat, drink sex, ect).
People said a long time ago "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" before there was even any proof. It may be just a matter of time until God is proven to exist. Also God can be in any form, because all the different religions describe God differently. They may all be correct. We may just not be capable of understanding God at this time. God could be the undiscovered ether, the substance that quarks and electrons may be composed of. That would make God everywhere, invisible and quite powerful. It also would require faith, because the ether can not be directly observed or measured (there is still a debate as to whether it exists).

At a point in the past everyone thought the world was flat too. And "...ether, the substance that quarks and electrons may be composed of", where did that come from?

[MarMan]

And "...ether, the substance that quarks and electrons may be composed of", where did that come from?

That is part of my belief in God. It is necessary otherwise there are big holes in the theory. It is difficult to get years of research and contemplation across in a few sentences AND have it make sense. And it is just my opinion anyway.

[BlindSniper]

I would like to add my opinion on this.

But first some background info on myself.
I was raised as a Christian and I'm in a Christian school, and I do believe in God , but on one random night I was on the forums browsing and I happened to click on someone's signature link that took me to some guy's blog or whatever and he claimed to have met God on a train somewhere. This article amused me at first because It sounded so ridiculous and then I decided to read the whole thing.

That night I thought about it and the likelihood that any one of those two were true was equal.
Both of them were told by humans, both of them had no chance of happening from a scientific point of view. Nevertheless I still prayed and most of my prayers came true to some extent. They could of happened in my favor by chance but that is quite unlikely.

So I kind of don't know what I believe in right now, although I still pray (kind of opportunistic tbh) . I'm open minded about these type of things, but following in something blindly just because everyone else is doing it, or because your were told to do it by someone , or because you will be rewarded if you do or punished if you don't, seems like the exact same case that happened to Germany and the Nazis. Although in the case of religion the leaders are just MIA so no genocide is taking place.

and my option about dieing:
I don't know why people are afraid of dieing. If you believe you go to heaven then surely you must want to go to heaven, if you are an Atheist you probably believe your consciousness just ceases to exist (I don't know what they believe correct me if i'm wrong) so what is there to fear. I once thought I would kill myself to see what would happen once i'm dead but then I thought I'm going to die anyway so lets experience life first.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

That is an incorrect statement. I tried to include more than 1 reason in the sentence, but you failed to pick up on any more than one.

There is a substantial reason, logic, rational thought, statistical analyses, common sense and probably others that I failed to mention over the course of several years . I just scratched the surface and am not writing a book for 3 reasons:
I don't have the time
I may not be able to properly explain it anyway
Even if I explain it, the reader may not comprehend it

Marman, we have had this kind of misunderstanding before, i was purposefully picking up on that specific statement as to me it makes a lot of sense.

Religion is taught, as a child grows up if they do not have other religious people to teach them the likelihood is they wont be religious.

Also i was sorting of making fun of this at the same time, as just that bit of your argument is a bit like saying "well everyone else is doing it so it must be right"

I think we have argued in enough threads now for me to know that would be unlikely to be your full reasoning.

You just proved #3 NeedSomeAnswers because your statement does not match anything I said (1 person does not even come close to equal many races which each one includes many people which have spanned hundreds if not thousands of years plus other factors). So you will just poke fun and stick to your opinion without adding any real thought of your own. Its a shame because sometimes you add value to discussions, not this time.

Good luck with your pigs!! You can count me out on that one

As for Flying Pigs that was actually not about you but me, really a joke about my lack of religiousness :0)

[Lord_Rat]

I have found nothing in life that is better explained by the presence of a god-figure than by logic.

For some things for which no reasonable explanation exists, a god-figure doesn't make it more reasonable.

(Such as what's after the edge of the universe?)

And I'm not insecure enough about my Super-Ego that I need think that for some reason, I *must* continue to exist when I die. I believe death is final.

[Shaggy Hiker]

@MarMan: That's an interesting belief. I had, indeed, attributed the wrong belief to you, and it sounds like your belief is considerably more nuanced.

Personally, after all the work I have done with genetic algorithms, I see nothing about the living things in the world that seems implausible. I have no doubt that evolution can create it all, since it will solve whatever problem is put to it. The current state of living things on this planet is an entirely viable solution to the problem based on the constraints the GA has. However, that doesn't preclude the possibility that there is something more. Our view of the world is based on our learning and an assumption that certain basic logical principles are correct. What those principles are can be debated, but they are largely that "if you do A, then B will happen." Even those who believe in mystical properties still hold that doing A produces B, though they have a very broad category of A.

Some of the points in quantum mechanics, chaos math, and a few other areas of math, suggest that reality isn't necessarily so neat. Logic is not always right, and A doesn't always produce B. This could be explained in a variety of ways. The point is that if logic is not always right there is room for something more. It may be a very boring something, or not. There is just room.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would love to see what comes later. Frankly, I am pessimistic about the continuation of the human race as a complex society. I would be not at all surprised to find that within 100 years, the level of technology of the human race had declined to about 14th century levels, from which it would never return. I'd be willing to believe that technological man lasted longer, or that the crash happened sooner, but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen. Therefore, it would be fascinating to see whether I was right, though I'd have to say that I would not want to live in that world.

My belief, in a nutshell, is that all technology used today is based on other technology. No one person can build any of the tools necessary to maintain this society from raw materials, as situation that is only a bit over 100 years old. Therefore, if anything pulls out a leg of this stool, then the whole deck falls to a level where it can sustain. I would guess that would be around 14th century technology. The second part of that would be that the resources that fueled the rise of technology is all gone. What remains requires technology to get to. The mines are deeper, the wells are deeper, and so forth. We built up to where we are today by picking the low hanging fruit. With that fruit now picked, no further society can reach these heights, once lost.

I regret that I will not see whether or not that theory is correct.

[EntityX]

Interesting posts. I'm convinced that both God and our own immortality can be proven but I don't feel that it is possible to prove it to someone else but you can prove it to yourself. One could debate endlessly and put forth giant volumes of proofs or attempted proofs and never change another's view but you can change yourself and your own state of consciousness. I say that you can realize your own unity with God. If you ask me what that means I'll probably remain silent. You have to discover it for yourself.

My suggestion to anyone that is seeking God and to anyone else that isn't seeking God but is seeking happiness ( in my opinion that person is seeking God though perhaps uncounsciously ) is to learn to sit quietly every day and learn to be happy just being still. I'm not going to go into discussing meditation techniques but how many people can be happy while conscious and not asleep, just being still without any sensory stimulation. There's an inner core of perfect joy at the center of all of us and I say that core is God but if you want to give it another name that's ok with me. We're all consciously or unconsciously seeking perfect happiness. The more you find your joy within, the more stable it will be. If your happiness is based in matter or the senses, money, fame, possessions, another human being or any external thing then it is on a shaky foundation. Your consciousness will feel and manifest that insecuity.

Here's a web page from Self-Realization Fellowship which I follow that has basic instructions on learning to meditate in case anyone is interested in learning more about it.

http://www.yogananda-srf.org/Learn_to_Meditate.aspx

[Lord_Rat]

Perfect happiness exists in the smiles and hugs from my kids. I need for nothing greater.

[EntityX]

What if they were taken away from you? Would your happiness be affected?

[Lord_Rat]

Yes. Of course.

But that doesn't mean there's a god. If anything, a god would ensure that they could never be taken away, so I'd take it as proof of a non-existence of a god. (Though in reality I'd take it neither way because I don't believe in one.)

[CVMichael]

...If anything, a god would ensure that they could never be taken away, so I'd take it as proof of a non-existence of a god.

If god would make sure your kids would never be taken away, then you would say "Everything is perfect, why would we need a god anyways?". [Edit] (Of course I pray that your kids will be safe, I don't want to be misinterpreted here. I'm talking in general here)

What many fail to understand is that life is a test for your soul. We are in school from the moment we are born until we die.
Just as we tech our children in school, and give them tests once in a while (to see if they actually learned anything), god gives us lessons and tests us once in a while.

If god would make a perfect life for all of us, then no one would be able to learn the lessons. One of the most important lesson for us is to make the difference between good and bad/evil, because if you don't know what is bad, then how can you be good ? How can you show mercy, and love, if you cannot see that the person in front of you is in pain ? If you don't know pain, you will not be able to see pain.

Pain (bad things in general) has to happen to you, before you can see it in others.

There are 2 ways to learn pain (bad/evil...). You can learn from the pain (bad things) you inflict in others, and you can learn from the pain(bad things) others have inflicted in you. Of course... from the first option is harder to learn, but you get there eventually.

I think you can learn from good things that happen to you, but I think in general, it's from the bad things that you learn the most.

The sad part of what I just said, is that only the people who actually learned some lessons understand what i just said, the others will say "bulls**t".

[Edit] After I read my original message a few times, I realized that I could be misinterpreted in many ways, so I tried to correct myself with a few edits.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The sad part of what I just said, is that only the people who actually learned some lessons understand what i just said, the others will say "bulls**t".

The sad part about that is that the only possible reason to say it is so that you now have a built-in reason to dismiss anybody who doesn't agree with you.

By the way, when a baby dies, does that mean that they didn't have anything to learn or that they didn't get the chance?

[CVMichael]

We have many lives. When a baby dies, it is just like when you open your eyes in the morning and then you close them again to go back to sleep. He/she will wake up again.

When he dies, it was not for his lesson, it was for your lesson. He sacrificed one of his lives for you to learn.

[dee-u]

Personally, I find it difficult to believe that someone could look at all the beauty of God's creation around them and not believe.

My thoughts also.

[TheBigB]

And you just ignore everything that is wrong in this world?
I mean I think it's great if you can see through all that (and I wish I could), but it's really a distorted view.

[dbasnett]

The problem is not whether a person believes or does not believe, it is that both sides feel the need to demand proof at times.

Science has proven that the story told in the Bible can not be interpreted literally. So what! If you were GOD and were answering questions and setting rules to ancient man could you tell the "truth". It is only in recent history that we have began to understand the complex processes involved in our development and the development of the universe. For that matter who amongst us would understand the "truth" today as told by a physicist or geneticist? How often do scientific theories change? How many planets are there? Don't proponents of M-Theory admit that at some point the math can not be proved? Here is some "truth".

How did the ancient story tellers know that the universe was without light and their GOD needed to create it? I have always found that odd...

The other side of the coin is that many religions seem to demand that faith is something other than what it is. I believe in GOD because I do not require proof of my GOD's existence. My believe today is not the same believe of 50 years ago, and after the events of July 2008 you might liken me to an atheist who had jumped into a foxhole, though I wasn't an atheist.

If you look under the hood of most (all?) modern religions and remove those things that are in the interest of the institution, you find a common theme. Common sense rules that most all of us follow.

When I see pictures like this it says GOD to me. But that is my choice.

If you choose not to believe I respect that, but hope that you extend me the same courtesy.

[EntityX]

We have many lives. When a baby dies, it is just like when you open your eyes in the morning and then you close them again to go back to sleep. He/she will wake up again.

When he dies, it was not for his lesson, it was for your lesson. He sacrificed one of his lives for you to learn.

I believe in reincarnation. Paramahansa Yogananda whose teaching I follow said that you can't fail to reach God ultimately. You might have to go through many lives to learn all your lessons but it will be worth all the difficulties. This is from an article written by one of Yogananda's disciples.

After attending a few of the public lectures by Paramahansa Yogananda and before taking the class lessons, this man felt the heavy weight of despair lifting from his heart. Returning to his home one night from the last of the public lectures, he was conscious of a great peace within himself. He felt that in some deep fundamental way, he had become a different person. An impulse urged him to look into a mirror in his room, that he might see the new man. There he saw, not his own face, but the face of Paramahansa Yogananda, whose lectures he had attended that evening. The floodgates of joy broke in his soul: he was inundated with waves of indescribable ecstasy. Words that had been merely words to him before - bliss, immortality, eternity, truth, divine love - became, in the twinkling of an eye, the only possible reality. Realization that these deep, everlasting founts of joy existed in every heart, that this immortal life underlay all the mortality of humanity, that this eternal, all-inclusive love enveloped and supported and guided every particle, every atom of creation, burst upon him with a surety, a divine certainty that caused his whole being to pour forth in a flood of praise and gratitude.

He knew, not with his mind alone, but with his heart and soul, with every cell and molecule of his body. The sublime splendor and joy of this discovery were so vast that he felt that centuries, millenniums, countless eons of suffering were as nothing, as less than nothing, if by such means this bliss could be obtained. Sin, sorrow, death - these were but words now, words without meaning, words swallowed up by joy as minnows by the seven seas.

[dee-u]

And you just ignore everything that is wrong in this world?
I mean I think it's great if you can see through all that (and I wish I could), but it's really a distorted view.

If you mean the diseases then I am not ignoring it, of course it is all part and parcel of life. If you mean the wrongdoings of human race then I am not ignoring it also, we are deciding on our own and if we choose to do wrong then God will not intervene, we have our own free will.

I actually started this thread to try putting myself in the shoes of those non-believers but up to now I still cannot really understand their position.

[TheBigB]

Well I think there's people that need a reason not to believe and there's people who need reason to believe.

I personally don't see a reason why I should believe, so I don't.

[Lord Orwell]

It sounds more like people observed the effect of eating apples and then coined this phrase. I haven't heard anyone saying "a mango a day keeps the doctor away", or "a melon a day keeps dehydration away" or something like that.

.

ironically, christians say eating an apple started sin

I would say that the foundation of human religion, at least the western versions, relies on an absolute faith in human exceptionalism. A belief that we, and we alone (though we occasionally allow in our pets, but never our food) are part of a larger plan.

Holy Cow.

None of that has anything to do with my belief in God. I see no evidence that we continue on after death in some way, that we are part of a larger plan nor that we have meaning. Those are either your beliefs or beliefs you got from somewhere and have incorrectly assumed (there's that word again) they have anything to do with my belief in God.

You are correct in that they are common across religions, so that may be where you got it from since I mentioned God was part of many religions. But let me make my belief clear so I can be properly bashed. (There's nothing worse then being improperly bashed for a belief that you do not believe in, well there are worse things.) I believe in God according to the evidence I've accumulated over the years. It just does not match anyone else's belief that I've had the pleasure to hear.
The things Shaggy mentioned are, in my opinion, an artifact of conscienceness (is that a word?) and have little if any effect on my perceived notion of God.

@MarMan: That's an interesting belief. I had, indeed, attributed the wrong belief to you, and it sounds like your belief is considerably more nuanced.

Personally, after all the work I have done with genetic algorithms, I see nothing about the living things in the world that seems implausible. I have no doubt that evolution can create it all, since it will solve whatever problem is put to it

It should be noted that evolution of species has been documented over the last 50 years. There for example is a new species of leopard that is very new. It has a small striped area.

If god would make sure your kids would never be taken away, then you would say "Everything is perfect, why would we need a god anyways?". [Edit] (Of course I pray that your kids will be safe, I don't want to be misinterpreted here. I'm talking in general here)

What many fail to understand is that life is a test for your soul. We are in school from the moment we are born until we die.
Just as we tech our children in school, and give them tests once in a while (to see if they actually learned anything), god gives us lessons and tests us once in a while.

If god would make a perfect life for all of us, then no one would be able to learn the lessons. One of the most important lesson for us is to make the difference between good and bad/evil, because if you don't know what is bad, then how can you be good ? How can you show mercy, and love, if you cannot see that the person in front of you is in pain ? If you don't know pain, you will not be able to see pain.

Pain (bad things in general) has to happen to you, before you can see it in others.

There are 2 ways to learn pain (bad/evil...). You can learn from the pain (bad things) you inflict in others, and you can learn from the pain(bad things) others have inflicted in you. Of course... from the first option is harder to learn, but you get there eventually.

I think you can learn from good things that happen to you, but I think in general, it's from the bad things that you learn the most.

The sad part of what I just said, is that only the people who actually learned some lessons understand what i just said, the others will say "bulls**t".

[Edit] After I read my original message a few times, I realized that I could be misinterpreted in many ways, so I tried to correct myself with a few edits.

how's this? God could create you with all this knowledge anyway. The christian bible actually states he doesn't want us to know good from evil, and the knowledge of this is not necessary to get into heaven anyway since children get a free pass. Where do these souls come from? Is a woman's body capable of creating a soul or are they sent from heaven? If the latter then why would they have evil in them? But that's logic for you. I could pick apart any religion if i really wanted to. That's why i think if there is a god, he's not being worshipped properly by ANYONE.

[Shaggy Hiker]

ironically, christians say eating an apple started sin

Hmmm. So, to extend the metaphor out, that would make doctors...angels?

Holy Cow.

Good answer. I was only refering to western beliefs, which I am increasingly disenchanted with.

It should be noted that evolution of species has been documented over the last 50 years. There for example is a new species of leopard that is very new. It has a small striped area.

I'm not sure that is technically true. We have certainly observed evolution in MANY species, but the entire concept of species was developed by people at a time before evolution was considered. To say they were creationists is hardly adequate. None of the folks who came up with scientific naming had any other working theory, so they wouldn't have had a name for creationism. It was the only game in town.

However, because that was their view, they came up with a system that was based on the assumption that species don't change. Since the real situation is FAR more fluid than that, it's a bit hard to say whether or not it is even possible for us to see a new species. We would have had to document that a population was homogenous and interbreeding, then we'd have to document a different sub section of that population that was no longer capable of interbreeding due to genetic incompatibility. Simply being reproductively isolated is enough for some people, while others feel that the two populations must be incapable of producing viable offspring. Therefore, it seems more likely that you would never find a new species because you could never get a sufficient majority of biologists to agree.

Species are not a biological construct, they are a human attempt to categorize animals.


how's this? God could create you with all this knowledge anyway. The christian bible actually states he doesn't want us to know good from evil, and the knowledge of this is not necessary to get into heaven anyway since children get a free pass. Where do these souls come from? Is a woman's body capable of creating a soul or are they sent from heaven? If the latter then why would they have evil in them? But that's logic for you. I could pick apart any religion if i really wanted to. That's why i think if there is a god, he's not being worshipped properly by ANYONE.[/QUOTE]