Do you Belive in a God or Not?

[24Gamer]

Could it not suggests, at least as plausably, that human beings feel a need to explain what they don't understand and therefore create an explanation?

i think i should make a list of good athiest quotes

 

[kurly]

Dosent atheism mean that you neither belive nor deny the existance?

Main Entry: 1ag·nos·tic
Pronunciation: ag-'näs-tik, &g-
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known, from gignOskein to know -- more at KNOW
: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
- ag·nos·ti·cism /-t&-"si-z&m/ noun
---
btw: I'm a "yes"

 

[Yakuza]

lol, no if i had 100% proof there wouldn't be any religons, thats the reason why they are still here, cuz no-one can totally disprove that god does exists.
it is scientific proof that part of the human mind is responsible for the belief in religon/supernatural.
basically when we die, blood stops pumping around our body and the electronic signals in our brain stop, thats it, thats all there is to life and death. people who cant exept that believe in life after death. i have trouble sometimes excepting that all i am is a complicated mix of chemical, but i know that i have to come to terms with reality. there is a logical reason for everything that has and will happen. just because we dont know about something (big bang maybe) doesnt mean there isn't a logical explaination for it.
damn this i knew i shouldn't of made an argument, i just know its not gonna get me anywhere with you religous people. just makes me laugh a little that you think when you die ur gonna go to heaven or some shit, AHAHAHAHAA, come athiests, laugh with me . :cheers:

So God is possible as well as the after life?

 

[hasan]

Logic can be endlessly demonstrated but never proven, since possibilities exist such as that the "laws" of physics have only been observed and replicated by chance all these years (how's that for unlikely! but it's still a philosophical possibility that must be considered), and that the next time you drop a ball, it may cause the world to turn into a small pink and purple peanut, rather than fall down.

Am I right in saying that you are saying this as a joke?
IMHO, this kind of logic is used by athiests to say that there is no God. The only thing is, they don't joke aobut it, they take it %100 seriously.

They just throw all the obvious evidence off the window and say "it just happened .. by chance, there is infinite time, infinite space .. bla bla".

Evolution through genetic mutation is quite well documented.

I think I'm past this level .. and here is what I have to say:
Evolution through mutation has been proven to be false.
I would normally stop here, but you mentioned two examples, without any sort of explanation. So I'll just tell you your examples have been falsified. but whatever.
As for the fruit flies, are you referring to the four winged flies?
This mutation is as positive as an arm coming out of your back.
It looks like an arm, idiots will think having three arms is "cool", but it's a harmful deformation none the less.

I agree, it is not.

lol, I said "if", and it really needs no explanation.

Just look around you, and tell me that everything came about by chance, with no design. Tell me that the blind, deaf, and brainless nature came up with everything "by chance". That's as logical as believing that blind and deaf idols are "gods".

I didn't say anything about you being an "idiot"

"Idiot" was not said, but implied. You said it's ironic that I'm using a computer example, and stopped right there. Implying that I'm too stupid to use the computer as an example.

(how's that for unlikely! but it's still a philosophical possibility that must be considered),

hmm .. I'm not into philosophy .. but if that statement is true, then there is no such thing as logic, hence philosophy doesn't exist. I guess this means the sentence disproves itself?

 

[Matthias]

May I be nosey enough to ask what kind of upbringing you've had? (religious?) I understand if you'd rather not get personal.

You might have hit the nail on the head there. All the people I know who are religeous have had religeous parents. If religeon has been part of your life since birth then you've used to it, like you say, there's no reason for you not to believe in Jesus.

Some poeple do become religeous without parental influence, although this is usually by some 'road to demascus (sp?)' life-changing experience. In this they become so streesed out that the brain must find a safety net, something to believe in and something that's looking after them. At least that's my theory.

I'm quite interested in exactly why people believe, I'm not criticising them I'm genuinely interested as it all seems so alien to me.

 

[Yakuza]

Could it not suggests, at least as plausably, that human beings feel a need to explain what they don't understand and therefore create an explanation? The existance of Religion is not good evidence for the existance of such a creator, just as the existance, in the past, of the belief that the world is flat is not good evidence to support that theory.
Just as, at the time when the world was believed to be flat, there was no logical reason for the people not to believe that?

I'm not attacking you or your beliefs, and respect your right to have them.. but you haven't yet suggested a good reason for believing what you do. May I be nosey enough to ask what kind of upbringing you've had? (religious?) I understand if you'd rather not get personal.

Still the question begs to be answered, directing at how this need became instilled in every know culture. Wouldn't be reasonable to accept the possibility that God designed us with that need with in us.

Exactly, while may faith could possibly be proven wrong, I still rest on the evidence and make my descisions.



Sure. I am a christian and have been one for about 4 years. I grew up in probably an anti-christian or at least the complete opposite of what christians believed. I spent 7-8 years of life addicted to drugs, I was married with a child at the age of 17 yet lived in a rather upper-middle class lifestyle most of my teenage years. Had my own buisness at the age 19 supporting a wife though school and a the medical expenses for a daughter who was born profoundly deaf. I also had a son about 2 1/2 years ago.

 

[24Gamer]

You might have hit the nail on the head there. All the people I know who are religeous have had religeous parents. If religeon has been part of your life since birth then you've used to it, like you say, there's no reason for you not to believe in Jesus.

Some poeple do become religeous without parental influence, although this is usually by some 'road to demascus (sp?)' life-changing experience. In this they become so streesed out that the brain must find a safety net, something to believe in and something that's looking after them. At least that's my theory.

I'm quite interested in exactly why people believe, I'm not criticising them I'm genuinely interested as it all seems so alien to me.

its so true

 

[24Gamer]

So God is possible as well as the after life?

believe what you want dude, one more person i can laugh at :angel:

 

[Phisionary]

Most likely not addressed to me, but...

Tell me that the blind, deaf, and brainless nature came up with everything "by chance".

Blind, deaf, and brainless nature came up with everything, by chance.


Really.

It's a belief in probability and inevitability. If something can happen physically, then after a really long time, there's a good chance it will happen. There's a good chance that planets will form through the action of gravity, there's a good chance that life will form through the interreactions between chemical substances, there is a good chance that it will become capable of sentience through an evolutionary process of replication ( or some analagous process that may take place elsewhere in the universe).

Before someone points out how happy an accident it is that there IS gravity and ARE chemicals, I don't think that really matters. Given any form of complex interaction, I think there is a certain probability that, with enough time and a stable enough situation, these interactions would be capable of producing something we would consider life.

I know this is more an argument on the existance of aliens or something, rather than religion, but all these factors apply to us as well. We took 10 billion years to randomly coalesce from the chaos of the universe. Nothing I can imagine could explain a higher being based on these sets of assumptions.

And yes, of course they are assumptions. We all must make assuptions to make decisions. Everything is fundamentally based on some form of assumption. They are the most obvious assuptions to my eyes.

Not quite to the subject, but considering the form that life can take, I read an interesting science fiction book, called 'Dragon's Egg' about life evolving independantly, at a highly accelerated rate, within the nuclear material of a neutron star. Sounds far-fetched, admittedly, but plausable, and pretty interesting...

 

[Matthias]

Still the question begs to be answered, directing at how this need became instilled in every know culture. Wouldn't be reasonable to accept the possibility that God designed us with that need with in us.

An interesting though occured to me, suppose God is all powerful (omnipotent) and could create us any way he wanted. When posed with the old "if there is a God then why is there so much war and suffering in the world" question, mnost christians reply with "becasue God created us with free will, if we wanted to make war we could"

I believe that pacifists, just like warmonger have free will. Couldn't God have created a race of pacifists, all with free will, all set against the idea of war and violence? I think that world would be better than the one we live in.

 

[Logic]

Am I right in saying that you are saying this as a joke?
IMHO, this kind of logic is used by athiests to say that there is no God. The only thing is, they don't joke aobut it, they take it %100 seriously.

I may have presented wacky and humerous examples, but that was the idea. It is POSSIBLE that you are the only being in existance, and this whole life of yours (or for that matter the entire universe) is something you've simply imagined in order to keep you company. It's possible that the past, the entire history of the world, is something I just thought up then. Get my drift? If you are totally open minded, even crazy possibilities like these (or the peanut example) are POSSIBLE. The reason I brought it up was because the discussion was about whether or not logic is absolute, and if you look at things from such a perspective where you are open to every possibility, it's possible that it isn't.

hmm .. I'm not into philosophy .. but if that statement is true, then there is no such thing as logic, hence philosophy doesn't exist. I guess this means the sentence disproves itself?

And yes, that was partly my point. If such a thing were to be true, and there is no such thing as logic, TRUTH ITSELF as we think of it would not exist, let alone philosophy. Which is why logic must be assumed to be absolute, or else nothing at all (other than existence itself), can be proven or demonstrated to be true.

I wasn't using the idea to disprove the existence of God, I was merely demonstrating it's ability to ruin proof of anything and everything, and that it is completely pointless territory to explore, as it runs you around in circles, where nothing can be true or provable.

 

[oldagerocker]

if people were set to be against war and violence from the word go then that isn't really free will. It's one side of freewill, like only being able to eat half the pie.

 

[Phisionary]

if people were set to be against war and violence from the word go then that isn't really free will.

Also, Kang and Kodos would come down and rule us all as a slave race.

 

[Matthias]

if people were set to be against war and violence from the word go then that isn't really free will. It's one side of freewill, like only being able to eat half the pie.

They would be capable of making war so they would have free will. They just wouldn't want to.

There must be some wierd or unpleasant thing that no-one on this earth wants to do, does that mean we don't have free will, like only being able to eat 99.99999% of the pie?

/likes constructive debating

edit: I guess it just seems to me that God could have done a better job creating the world. One quarter of all people are trapped in abject poverty, living on less than $1 a day. Surely there must be something that could be done to sort things out without stripping us of our free will. What if food was twice as nutritious? It could cut world hunger in half. Would we have lost our free will?

 

[PvtRyan]

Sure. I am a christian and have been one for about 4 years. I grew up in probably an anti-christian or at least the complete opposite of what christians believed. I spent 7-8 years of life addicted to drugs, I was married with a child at the age of 17 yet lived in a rather upper-middle class lifestyle most of my teenage years. Had my own buisness at the age 19 supporting a wife though school and a the medical expenses for a daughter who was born profoundly deaf. I also had a son about 2 1/2 years ago.

I'm sorry to hear the bad things that happened to you. But my guess is that you became religious because of those things right? That you made it and pulled through and thought 'there must have been a higher being that helped me'. But when you look outside and see all the bad things out there (like AIDS, malaria, ebola, and since you don't believe in evolution, they surely must be made by God right?), how can you still be sure there's a higher being that helps people, and not just think you had luck or did it all on your own strength (also a habit of Christians, always thank God for the things they did themselves)?

Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to judge you.

 

[Yakuza]

An interesting though occured to me, suppose God is all powerful (omnipotent) and could create us any way he wanted. When posed with the old "if there is a God then why is there so much war and suffering in the world" question, mnost christians reply with "becasue God created us with free will, if we wanted to make war we could"

I believe that pacifists, just like warmonger have free will. Couldn't God have created a race of pacifists, all with free will, all set against the idea of war and violence? I think that world would be better than the one we live in.

Read "Cost of Decipleship" by Dietrich Boneoffer (spelling on that name).

A renound pacifist and brilliant theologion who was executed for attempting to assassinate Hitler.

 

[Logic]

Still the question begs to be answered, directing at how this need became instilled in every know culture. Wouldn't be reasonable to accept the possibility that God designed us with that need with in us.

Exactly, while may faith could possibly be proven wrong, I still rest on the evidence and make my descisions.



Sure. I am a christian and have been one for about 4 years. I grew up in probably an anti-christian or at least the complete opposite of what christians believed. I spent 7-8 years of life addicted to drugs, I was married with a child at the age of 17 yet lived in a rather upper-middle class lifestyle most of my teenage years. Had my own buisness at the age 19 supporting a wife though school and a the medical expenses for a daughter who was born profoundly deaf. I also had a son about 2 1/2 years ago.

To be completely honest, I was expecting you to say you grew up in a christian family. I guess that was some presumptuous generalizing on my behalf, and quite short sighted of me.

I guess people become religious for different reasons, and that (true or not) it can definately be helpful to people. I may not share your beliefs, but (as I said aaaages ago in the thread), I do, in a very round about way, believe in God. The reason for that is that something must have caused the universe to be, and whatever that is, that's what I call God. I don't believe it to be a personified figure, who judges etc etc, and think that logic disproves such ideas, but there has to have been a 'cause'. And I guess that's all it is, that's why religion is so widespread, and springs up in different cultures - something caused the universe to be. That's the start... from there, the idea has been embelished, and that 'cause' has been personified in order for people to feel some kind of affinity with it, which brings importance and meaning to their lives. If faith allows you to have meaning in your life then I guess it's a good thing, contributing to happiness. It seems there will always be people on both sides of the fence, perhaps there's little point (and definately little hope) in one side convincing the other to change their views.

 

[Matthias]

Read "Cost of Decipleship" by Dietrich Boneoffer (spelling on that name).

A renound pacifist and brilliant theologion who was executed for attempting to assassinate Hitler.

Ah that's the good ol' do-the-means-justify-the-ends-debate.

But if the whole world was like Mr. Bonhoeffer, then there would be no Hitler and no need to assasinate him in the name of pacifism,

 

[Yakuza]

I'm sorry to hear the bad things that happened to you. But my guess is that you became religious because of those things right? That you made it and pulled through and thought 'there must have been a higher being that helped me'. But when you look outside and see all the bad things out there (like AIDS, malaria, ebola, and since you don't believe in evolution, they surely must be made by God right?), how can you still be sure there's a higher being that helps people, and not just think you had luck or did it all on your own strength (also a habit of Christians, always thank God for the things they did themselves)?

Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to judge you.

No, it because I have had a profound experiance with Jesus Chrsit that makes me follow him. I didn't come to christianity because...well....this is the best of two choices. Sure Crappy things happened in my life....well...thats life. to live is to suffer as it is said. And yeah that did have an impact on my heart that desired to search for the truth and hope that life had more meaning than it did for me back then. Shoot you think my life has changed you should see what God did to my marriage, talk about awsome. The coolest thing about God was that he came looking for me. I didn't go search him out, I didn't find God. He found me!

 

[Logic]

They would be capable of making war so they would have free will. They just wouldn't want to.

There must be some wierd or unpleasant thing that no-one on this earth wants to do, does that mean we don't have free will, like only being able to eat 99.99999% of the pie?

/likes constructive debating

edit: I guess it just seems to me that God could have done a better job creating the world. One quarter of all people are trapped in abject poverty, living on less than $1 a day. Surely there must be something that could be done to sort things out without stripping us of our free will. What if food was twice as nutritious? It could cut world hunger in half. Would we have lost our free will?

Hmmm... I'm considering launching into a 'denial of the existance of free will' rant...

 

[Yakuza]

Ah that's the good ol' do-the-means-justify-the-ends-debate.

But if the whole world was like Mr. Bonhoeffer, then there would be no Hitler and no need to assasinate him in the name of pacifism,

Pacifism is a choice made in the midst of conflict. You cant have pacifism without conflict.

 

[Matthias]

So if you're saying that peach doesn't exist without war, then a whole race of pacifists can't exist. OK, replace pacificsm with, I don't know, some term meaning you don't like violence, or causing others to suffer.

 

[Logic]

I'm not going to get into the "God could have created the world better" argument, as it doesn't really even suggest he doesn't exist, only that if he does, he might not be "perfectly good", but since I believe morality is subjective (not absolute), and disbelieve in God the 'person', I'd basically be talking assuming things to be true that I believe aren't. So I won't bother.

But for anyone interested, here's some reasons why free will may very well not exist at all!

Ahem.... The first thing to consider is determinism. What that basically entails is the idea that every 'event' (on the smallest possible level, such as the interaction of particles\atoms etc etc) is the exact reaction to the situation, based on the laws of physics.

Example: lets imagine a hypothetical universe - this entire universe contains only two physical dimension, it's a square. The only object in the universe is a ball. The ball is moving, and when it hits a wall, it bounces according to the laws of physics. Basically a game of pong, right? Ok, so the ball hits the wall at a certain speed and angle, and bounces off. Now lets backtrack, right before the collision, and play it through again. It's going at the same speed, at the same angle, from the same location... it's the same situation. The same result will happen. The exact same bounce, and the only result that could have come from the situation.

Right, now look at our own universe. This time with more physical dimensions, and BILLIONS OF BILLIONS more bits of matter (more... balls, if you want to stick with that analogy). Each and every interaction that happens, like the example above, can only happen one way, and is the only possible reaction to the situation. I could elaborate with more examples, but that should present the idea.

So that's determinism - for every situation, there is only one possible outcome, and that's the one that happens. As humans, we hypothesise about different outcomes, and are incapable of knowing the position, direction and movement of EVERY atom, so we can't predict the future, which gives the illusion that we are influencing things by choice. In reality, the choices we make are the only ones we can make.

Lets say you're walking down a path, and you come to a fork in the road. You could go left, or right. You decide to go right for whatever reason. Now lets once again backtrack.. back to the exact same situation, before the choice. Your state of mind and knowlege is the same, the environment is the same, the reasons that led you to make your decision before are the same... clearly you will make the same choice. Thus, choice is an illusion, because you can only make one in each case.

So that's the basics of determinism, and it disproves free will. The only good argument I've heard against determinism is quantum physics (and I only accept it as a possibility because I haven't studied it and therefore can't make an educated assessment of it) in which things happen randomly based on probability. But that doesn't help free will at all - it's even less supportive, in that it suggests that our choices are the results of RANDOM particle interractions.

So... anyone have any solid evidence for free will?

(sorry about the length, I tried being as brief as possible ... I'm off to sleep now, but keep the discussion up, it's been interesting )

 

[Phisionary]

...determinism...

(stuff)​

All I can say is [size=+2]AAAUUGGHH! MY BRAIN HURTS![/size]

I mean, not because I don't understand it, but wow is that a wild concept. I guess I believe that's true as well, but man if it's not kinda mind boggling. So whatever neural pathways that are firing in my brain, and whatever things that happened to me, and whatever fly landed on my face and made twitch -- did happen, will happen, always would have happened, exactly as they did. Everything that has occurred in the history of the universe was simply one part of a giant chain reation that would have transpired exactly the same way, even if it were done all over again. Definitely boggling. :O Makes a lot of sense though.

Very interesting to ponder, but hardly has a bearing on the real world, except as a philosophical consideration...

 

[mchammer75040]

Only if you knew who Jesus was when choosing a different religion.

So what happens to everyone in a different religion who hasnt come in contact with christianity after death? A free ticket into heaven?

So God is possible as well as the after life?

Why do you keep bringing this up? Just about everyone has agreed that it is possible, its also possibly that pink fairies run the universe on mars and when we die we join them.

 

[The Mullinator]

The main reason I don't believe in god?

Why in the past when humans were still very isolated did so many different religions exist? What happened to all those ancient Greeks when they died? Did they go to hell because they had polythiestic beliefs instead of believing in a single Christian god?

 

[bgesley426]

Ever notice that when someone states their beliefs they ask more questions than give answers? I try not to, but I'm not saying I have all the answers. I at least know these three truths.

Does God serve a purpose? Yes.
Can this purpose be filled by other means? Yes.
Does it have to be? No.

 

[Neutrino]

And as I said with Logic. I thing deep down you dont really buy that. IMHO

I'm late to the argument, but I'll just add that I completely agree that all morality and ethics are subjective.

And yes Yakuza, I truly do think that.

 

[Letters]

I'm surrounded by subjectivists! Somebody who thinks it's okay to shoot people named Letters on the internet please do so!

 

[CyberSh33p]

I'm surrounded by subjectivists! Somebody who thinks it's okay to shoot people named Letters on the internet please do so!

this thing is still going? :\

/me bands letters with a ger naed

 

[Viperidae]

Voltaire (or whoever quoted him) was a genius :

"In a country, if there are two religions, they will be at each others throats. If there are a hundred religions, they will live in peace."

"If god did not exist man would be compelled to create him."

"Judge people not by their answers, but by their questions."

I believe there's 'something' out there. Anybody read Philip Pullman (sorry if he has been mentioned, haven't bothered to read whole thread)?

 

[chibizerov4]

yes! praise the heavenly lord

 

[chibizerov4]

If you don't love god, then you have to praise him now, so that your life can turn into heaven =)

 

[poseyjmac]

So what happens to everyone in a different religion who hasnt come in contact with christianity after death? A free ticket into heaven?

yea id like to hear a christian's answer on this.. there are many isolated tribes of people in africa for instance that are cut off from any other cultures. what happens to them then?

 

[f|uke]

... define god

There really should be more answers to this poll.

I believe in a force that preceeds material reality,. but I dont believe in a guy casting judgements.

I voted no.

 

[Matthias]

I am still undecided on whether there is a creator, be it God or someother force, responsible for the birth of the Universe. A rival theory exists whereby the universe is cyclic, and has always existed.

 

[Sprafa]

I'm surrounded by subjectivists! Somebody who thinks it's okay to shoot people named Letters on the internet please do so!

/me shoots letters

 

[Logic]

I am still undecided on whether there is a creator, be it God or someother force, responsible for the birth of the Universe. A rival theory exists whereby the universe is cyclic, and has always existed.

Funny enough I was thinking along those lines not too long ago... I doubt we'll ever understand the truth of the matter though (at least not in our lifetimes), trying to pinpoint the nature of existence itself is a bit over our heads I think

I think it's probably likely that just as there are atoms in the physical universe we know, our physical universe may be one of an incredibly large number of 'entities' in another level of existence that we can not possibly fathom. The fact that we have such limited sight and understanding of the universe that we inhabit, and existence itself, is not really reason enough to assume that it is the only thing of it's kind. That would be like someone living on an island and assuming that there are no other land masses, simply because they have no way of knowing about them.

 

[Sprafa]

/me shoots thread

DIE THREAD DIE!!!

And Logic, as usual, you're right.

 

[Logic]

All I can say is [size=+2]AAAUUGGHH! MY BRAIN HURTS![/size]

I mean, not because I don't understand it, but wow is that a wild concept. I guess I believe that's true as well, but man if it's not kinda mind boggling. So whatever neural pathways that are firing in my brain, and whatever things that happened to me, and whatever fly landed on my face and made twitch -- did happen, will happen, always would have happened, exactly as they did. Everything that has occurred in the history of the universe was simply one part of a giant chain reation that would have transpired exactly the same way, even if it were done all over again. Definitely boggling. :O Makes a lot of sense though.

Very interesting to ponder, but hardly has a bearing on the real world, except as a philosophical consideration...

Yeah, that's true, it doesn't really have much of a bearing on how we live our lives.. no matter if you believe in free will or not, the way you percieve time will always make it seem as if you are instigating a choice of your own. The concept does, however, become relevant when trying to understand how the universe works, and I do think that determinism is something that science will be able to prove or disprove in time. If it is at some point proven.... I predict there will once again be more separation between religious minded, and scientific minded people, just as evolutionists and creationists disagree now, since free will is one of the fundamental concepts that christianity (and likely other religions) teaches. Ironically, though, the idea of an omniscient God also suggests (if not enforces) the truth of determinism, and therefore the lack of free will. Quite a contradiction.