Debate Do you think that God exists?

I don't believe in God. I have no need to.

Humans seem to have such huge egos sometimes... I mean, it's just assumed that there's some reason we're here, like we're somehow important in the wonderful madness that is the universe.... I don't need to feel like that.


If God DOES exist, and you are one of those wishy-washy agnostics who seem to think that they'll turn up at the pearly gates, and say "Ah, but I said you'd couldn't be disproved" or whatever, if God is impressed by that, then he's such a pedantic ****er I wouldn't care to worship him anyway.

 

Your post is thought provoking Jaken, actually everyone's opinion is But.. Although it is true that we cannot rationally prove the existence of God, we can not rationally prove the existence of anything either(except ourselves ^^; ).

Descartes was a rationalist who doubted the world around him, one of his reasons was that he could be in a dream world and not know it.. Dreams feel real, you can not tell the difference between reality and the dreamworld when you are sleeping - the same senses are there(sound a bit like The Matrix?) Actually Descartes wasn't even sure if he existed or not, but then he realized that someone must have been thinking that! ("Cogito Ergo Sum" - I think therefore I am)

I brought the above point up because some people think they can prove the existence of God through their own personal experience, they believe because they see. I guess if this were true, I have seen therefore I believe. (call me crazy if you will XD) Although, I think it was more that I saw because I believed. I still question what I saw, but I can't conclude that it was set up or fake either. In Conyers, Georgia I was praying the rosary with a group of people near a statue of Mary when suddenly the smell of roses filled the air and a sort of oil started to perspirate from the statue.. this happened to a statue of St. Mike nearby as well. A teacher from my old high school had brain cancer and breast cancer and was very sick and scheduled to die. She decided to go to a healing mass and was healed, hard to reason out, ne?

There are many things that we cannot explain in this world, including the existence of God.. but just because we can't explain these things does not mean that we should conclude that they are false. To tolerate uncertainty is a rule of critical thinking.

It would be interesting to hear why you believe in God, Neph. And why you do not believe in God, Mordeth.

 

There are several reasons. First and foremost I will admit that my childhood was utterly filled with varied religious stuff (beginning with parents who let me find my own path as a young child with some small exposure to christianity as well as other belief systems, continuing on to a grade school where catholicism was unrelentingly forced on me to the point where even mentioning another belief system actually ended up getting me in trouble, and once again eventually finding freedom) to the point where some belief is simply natural.

Second, I have had enough experiences (some supernatural, some not, with the former going under very intense questioning by myself) to give me cause to belief that God does exist. Furthermore, I feel that if anything God is not a magician; rather he is more like an extremely advanced scientist.

Once again I freely admit that this is a completely irrational belief.

 

I beleave there is more then one God(more like god and goddess, Shinto style). I tend to not to be really religius, I don't pray or worship any really.
I tend to be more tord the Shinto side of any thing.

Shinto: A native Japanese religen that beleave that every element of nature, such as the Sun and Moon, Wind and Water, even rock and trees have there own deity.

And I'm a little Buddist, But I like to have thing so....

 

Its true wht u said. I actually did not choose to believe in God becos its easier but through what I discover over the years. Every individual is entitled to choose to believe in whatever they like. But hopefully, they do more research before making the choice. I started to do my own little survey when I started to question "what if ther's really a God, am I missing something?" Information is easy to obtain eversince internet is born.

I dont think God promise an easy life on earth without suffering. But I'm glad he's ther for me when I'm in such situation(the light shine the brightest in the darkest moment). But still, I hav to rely on faith, cos ther's no guarantee my belief is really true.

 

From different religion, perspective and opinions come different theories of the existence of God. Some say there are more than one God, some say there are Gods and Goddesses, many chrsitians believed in the holy trinity, i guess no mortal being such as us humans can comprehend if God's existence is correct or false. With our simple mind, we can't understand things beyond our dimension, our universe in fact a supreme being that is said to rule over us in a form we can not see. Our knowledge is limit to a extend that we can only hypothesize and give theories into what we actually believe into. Of course many say why believe in something that might not even exists just like the people who follow religion, to tell you the truth religion really is mostly about blind faith.

Firstly, i must say that i do believe in the existence of God. From the perspective of my own, the universe itself has infinite mass and has continuous growing potential into an ever growing state, yet people have come up with the bigbang theory to cover up what lies beyond the unknown. As it was calculated, the chances of big bang happening is 1/100 with 27 zero's following after 100. And the calculation of being the existence of God contains more evidence and prove that such explosion mass occur. The ration of God's existence is 1/10 with 25 zero's. Let alone the fact that using God can explain any unexplainable phenomenon.

Sir Issac Newton believed that there is a supreme life form out there ruling the Earth confronting the universe. Because he theorized and observed that, everything in the world is in perfect order. From how our body functions to the order of planets and such. It is practically impossible to form such alignment without supreme power. As a fact to this i do believe that believing in the existence of God is more convincing than explosion creating life form out of sources of energy within that massive explosion. of course others would argue about how the supreme being is created. A critic Jonathan Sarfati "If God created us than who created God." that is beyond our finite knowledge to understand. Yet the bible referred to as God's word has said, "I am who i am, i am the alpha, omega, beginning and end" Basically what God is trying to say is that, that is not necessary for you to know because it's beyond your comprehension.

My second point to God's existence, people say,"I believe what i see, yet what i heard is deceiving and cannot be trusted." So what if i question you this, if you say you only believe in what you see, than why do you believe in love? Love cannot be seen nor can it be touched by any of the 5 senses. Yet our 6 sense emotion can feel such thing as love. Of course some may even argue, love is just a pratical illusion to the human body as one interacts with another in an extrodinary way. But can you denied that there's love? The same thing as God. People have seen others performing miracles, idiots believe foolish things such as telepathy when it was a set up. So why is it doubtful to believe an actual convincing thing such as God himself.

You cannot see God, you cannot hear God but your emotion and deep inside you know there's something beyond this world. You know that you need to seek it. You don't believe it's because there's no form. But what if he actually appeared in front of you? would you believe than? those who do not believe say only that things in this world is real, than tell me this. What can you take away when you die if everything is so real to you? you say where we are living right now is reality, but what if it's just an illusion, a deceiving deceptions, fantasy and a saga? What if this was a set up? Than what is real? what is true? If you can take a risk believing that this world fill with questions and illusions is real, than why is it hard to believe in the existence of God. Is it because you can't accept the fact that some one is governing us and we humans are inferior to?

my third point is, people doubt to the existence of God is because there are too many and the fables about them are so unrealistic. I personally am a chrisitan and i follow christ in a way. According to my belief christ will one day come back again and we should follow his words. People say the bible is fake, The words in it are all philosophy and all that is teachings of Good but does not lead you to immortality and for ever place in heaven. They say there is no heaven and no hell. This world is just live and die. So i ask you once, what is your purpose of life if you are not achieving a place with God? Why are you living? I am not trying to be rude, why are you still living? You might as well die now. Why are you enjoying the earthly goods? You will one day die than you are just a burden to the life cycle. When you don't believe in God and a purpose behind believe him. There is something missing within you or we might as well call that purpose. Without a purpose in life you are not doing anything or contributing. There's really no need for us to live.

You might say the bible is fake. Well let me tell you this, the bible is not written by one person in one year. It's been written by people and disciples who traveled all over the world in different time zone and in different environment to explain to us the Gospel of God. let alone the fact that each of the books connect to each other and make sense when read, it's hard to believe it's wrong. When scientists found prove to the opening of the dead sea, the fall of babylon, the plagues that may have happened sunken city, noah's ark and now they discovered the code within the bible forecasting the plane crash of the twin towers. What is there, or how is there to prove it wrong? You might be arguing again it could be a conincedent but scientists and archaeologists have calculated the chances of happening is zero. Because no 200 different writters can write about the exact thing in different time zone and produce a bible code. So there's only evidence to prove the truth of the bible but not to prove it false.

Lastly i have to say. Of course there are facts that proves believing in God is more convincing or some facts that say science is the key to immortality. But either way, it's all about your faith. There's really no exact anwser to it. Yet i do fully believe my belief as to What christ has said, " I am the truth the way and the light." Some might again disagree but it's all personal opinion. Again if i must say people complain about if God really exists why did he create all the suffering, isn't he a loving and caring God? I guess you can understand it as him giving us a test. A test for us to see if we truly follow and believe in him. We can't really give each of us exact anwser because it all come backs to opinion. if i must say, no one ever will be able to give an exact definite answer to the world unless God himself appears again in front of all of us. May be one day we will find the answer or perhaps we won't, until after we die.

Thanks all for reading this ^_^ hope i gave a good opinion.

Fushigi.

 

And where did you get these "calculations"?

Someone calculated Gods chances of existing?

Well the Tooth Fairy can be used to explain stuff do but that doesn't mean it happened that way; often the only reason we can't explain is because we don't have the knowledge of it yet.

Our body is horribly designed, from eyes that are effectively wired backwards, to cancerous cells, to using the same pipe for eating and breathing.

Just because you believe that doesn't mean it's true.

A 100 mile tall man in a toga making things poof out of thin air is more convincing then a scientific theory?

Of course, God not only lies in the Bible, but he also mass murders. I'm not saying this to insult, I'm saying it because it's true. Why should I take a lying mass murderers word at face value?

Love has observable effects, is felt firsthand, and can be used to describe a series of behavioural patterns.

How do you know God isn't a very very convincing setup?

Wrong. I know plenty of athiests who do not.

Conciousness would end at that point for an athiest.

Why is it hard to believe the God in the Bible is actually a troupe of aliens having fun with their toys?

No.

If your mom told you your grandfather slaughtered 70000 cloned nazi supertroopers, would you be inclined to believe her?

Achieving enlightment? Bettering humanity? There is no purpose at all? Take your pick.

Because I've had the sheer good fortune to be born in one of the wealthier nations and haven't had the misfortune to have a deadly disease or accident.

Why are most people not enjoying them?

Who says the purpose has to be God?

It's called a continuing work. Think of it as a long letter added on year after year. Just because the Star Wars books all line up doesn't mean they're real.

Source? Show US the proof if you want us to believe you. I could say they found Buddha's animated corpse dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole, but if I don't back it up, why should anyone believe me? Furthermore, there are Noah stories in MANY religions, including the ancient greek mythology.

That's a hoax, pure and simple. Look at these links...
http://humane.sourceforge.net/published/bible_hoax.html
http://www.nmsr.org/biblecod.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/biblcode3.htm

Do you actually believe it works? You can pull anything from them.

Yes, wonderful. Another unsourced claim. Read the sites and report back.

You mean like the fact that a global flood is impossible? It's pretty easy to yank out every few letters out of anything and get something out of it.

So God gives people cancer because he wants to make sure they're loyal? That isn't love, that is sick, sadistic, and childish. If a kid stabbed his mom to see if she would still love him, would you expect her to?

I personally feel that it isn't about a test of loyalty, rather that we come here to become stronger.


Overall, a good try for a beginner, but so many ridiculous and/or unsourced claims ruins your credibility, along with the fact that some things just don't seem to have been thought out from another perspective. Keep up the good work and someday you'll be able to write a really good, mind-twisting essay.

 

you say that we cannot understand the nature of god, so we must accept that he is, and that he has always been.

I put it to you that you do not understand the nature of the big bang and other avenues of theoretical physics, it happened. the fact that you cannot wrap your head around it is immaterial, trying to avoid the issue will not validate your claims nor will it invalidate those of the scientific community.

science is not trying to disprove god, but the more we learn about the universe the more we see that what we in previous times attributed to the 'hand of god' was merely simple natural phenomena that due to our limited scientific knowledge (caused by who.. ooh, lookie.. THE CHURCH) we were unable to study correctly and understand.
As more time goes on, and the stranglehold the churches have on education and the moral right weakens (except of course in the united states, where it's stilla crime to teach the theory of evolution in some states isn't it?) scientific rigour, method and understanding will take its place in our quest to 'understand' the universe.

 

CAUTION.. NO ONE UNDER TWELVE READ THIS....(just covering my bases)

and just because we cannot prove that these things do not exist, we should acknowledge them as possibilities. certainly. however, if you cannot prove to me that a unicorn exists on the planet pluto, I will be forced to acknowledge that yes... it is possible sparky does live there, quite happily.. and with big foot for a next door neighbour, but it is not very plausible.
probability is not an excuse for fairy tales.

the reason to so many people that god seems *everywhere* and that they cannot imagine a life without, is mental conditioning.. brainwashing. I don't mean this to sound as ominous as it may be coming across, but it's the only word I could think of.

you are born, to religious parents. they immerse you in their world of prophets and messiahs and god(s), when you are young.. you are uncertain of the world around you.. of it's 'rules and laws' so you accept these stories. they make sense, and they make the world seem nicer. As you grow older, you learn that the tooth fairy, santa clause and jack frost.. are make believe. People your parents, and their parents before them made up to ease your passage through the early years of life and to protect you from the supposed harsh realities of the world we inhabit.

Why then was the same not done for god? All you have to go one is stories. Your parents believed, their parents believed.. and somehow that is enough.. no one ever woke the first christians from their fairy tale worlds and showed them 'the truth'. It is an irrational and yes, dangerous belief that is holding the course of human evolution back steadily, year by year.

why I don't believe in god. acceptance, I suppose is the word I'm looking for here. I accept the nature of my reality, I accept my fleeting consciousness and the realisation of my ending and try to do what I can with my life. Not for god, not for my family.. not for me, but simply because I have nothing else to do. We have nothing but life, so all we can do is live.
Our consciousness is (and this is an incredibly simplistic story here) our ability to perceive ourselves in the 3rd person.. to be able to make abstractions.. hypothetical situations, and work around them.. learn from them, analyze and figure out.. how to solve the puzzle.. be it tying the first piece of sharp rock to a pointy stick (absaloute sodding genius btw that man) or deciding whether or not go get up and go to school in the morning.
It is a simple (well.. not *that* simple) mathematical function that has evolved in our brains over time.
I accept the nature of my reality, and so I do not seek to create a new one.

Gabrielle

hopefully they do research *full stop*... the quality of alot of christian research is.. laughable, and.. tear-jerking at the same time.

that's a bad dog! don't do that on neds lawn!

charles manson believed he had the right to kill people for their supposed crimes unto him. belief is personal, and should stay that way.

he observed the creator? .. must have missed that in my science textbook, and scientists are *still* searching for this 'perfect order' you speak of.. they haven't found it yet. and it is certainly not an indication of a supreme being.

yes.. love as you seem to understand it is a fake, hollywood and commercial emotion. love is understanding, compassion, friendship, caring... it is nothing but a more evolved friendship, though we trick ourselves into believing otherwise.

answered this one above..

and erm.. how would I be a burden to the 'life cycle'? believe me child, the 'life cycle' you speak of doesn't care a white for my opinions of myself, my opinions on the universe or on the nature of god. when I die, my body will decompose and it will act as a food source for whatever it is that eats dead bodies, THAT is the life cycle you speak of. what happens in between.. our lives, is immaterial and a construct of our own imaginations.

look up a few of the similarly themed religious threads on this board for evidence to suggest (not proof) the falseness of the bible, believe me.. there is alot. One in particular is the virgin birth.. which christianity STOLE from well.. the romans.. and well, alot of other things.. read up on it, I don't have the time or the patience right now to go into it.

what has this got to do with ANYTHING in this thread?

if it's all personal opinion.. then why do you try to prove it with your biased and down right untrue facts?

the world is a question? .. looks to me like a full stop.

zanza.. I'm goign to be nice here because you are a friend of mine.

If you are going to claim something as fact.. have something to back it up, otherwise you come off looking like a complete and utter fool. If this is the style of religious debate that you intend to carry on.. then we will get nowhere. You cannot simply claim something as fact because it is YOUR belief, that is immature and.. well.. very fundamentalist.

this sentence speaks for itself.

it may explain 'gods work' in this world, but so far it has yet to throw up a shred of evidence that it is 'his work'

 

What ever! Look i think God exists so there !!

 

if I said what I thought, I'd get barred

I don't think that's fair

 

i totally agree with you mordeth, Fushigi sweety if you want to make a sensible and convincing argument please back it up because in the end you with portray yourself like a person who just throws nonsense togather and add some scientific nothings and expects people to see your way

 

Hmmm...(Summed up version); "there is no way right now to get the true answer, there all opinions, HOWEVER, i say that this is true opinion *Pulls stats out of **** others say otherwise but again we cant get a definate answer for we dont understand everything... BUT MY OPINIONS RIGHT"
...
...
...
Yeah, really good :/

Yeah, so if a brick Unexplainably comes flying through my window & i look outside finding no-one there... god did it? ... ... ... GOD YOU BASTARD, YOU BETTER PAY FOR A NEW WINDOW!!!

anyways...

 

Please read the book The philosophies of science, and many resourceful sites such as google, calculations for the existence of God as the key word.

yes as well as the calculation towards the big bang.

you can very well be right, but we understand the fact that we have proven or in fact known for a fact that tooth fairy does not exist. but yet we cannot prove the fact that God does not exist. In a sense i am not saying Using God to explain everything, but he is able to explain any unexplainable phenomenon

Thats because of the premitive ages to now. people have much polluted our environment. Our body life span and much adapted to what is now. Our body is in fact perfect in a sense when it first began. If our body is horribly designed we basically won't be able to easily adapt to different environment.

I didn't state anything of the existence of God. But it's just impossible to align such way within our universe without advance technology or in another word omnipotence.

God has no form, he created with power. Of course you may say it's a fable. But i must also say. An explosion creating life form? A explosion out of no where just decided to come out from nothing? It's just as unbelivable as the creation from God.

I guess in a sense you can say he is a mass murder. But if he has the power to give life, than it is his will to take away. We won't need to questions because we are not worthy to.

Correct, as well as the believing part about the existence of God. Again i can use what you just said to say i feel the existence of God. First hand and cannot be felt by others in a behavioural patterns.

I don't, that's where blind faith and believe comes in.

I must disagree, it is a natural emotion for people to think of things beyond this world. As imagination occurs is it natural. They might not notice it but they have it within. Of course if they deny it or have other reasons than there's no point to argue with him because he has his own opinion.

Are you sure? Have you actually died and ressurected?

Why is it so hard to believe that God exists and not a bunch of aliens having fun with their toys?

Many have their own opinion and many other reasons to. This might not occur to you but it still affects others in a way

but is my grandfather beyond this world. Does he wield the power of Gods?
What is within this world is not belivable, of course it can be real but within this world we can use logic to define our unknowns.

but once you achieve your purpose, what is left? Might as well die and perish.
you need something beyond this life.

Did i say it had to be? I just said a purpose beyond this world. Because what is within this world can be achieved. But what is outside is not yours to decide.

If archaeologists and other scientists aren't able to prove the bible wrong, i doubt you can just by using the theory of star wars. please.

please visit the discovery channel. It was in one episode i previously watch about the founding of noahs ark, and the other one was about the plague against the eygptian by Gods because the pharoah had decided to concur against him. proves about reigns of fire and coal falling down from the sky. As we also know that Babylon has fall and was prophecized at the exact time it would fall wihin the bible.

Ok, i read those. But taking every fifth letter putting it into a word after that making it into perfect sense with the authours not knowing each other and scriptures found at different times? At the end at the book of revelations prophicizing about different stories and explaining the coming back of christs in detail formation? I doubt that is possible because the author didn't even know they were going to put it together like this. Furthermore bible wasn't written by 1 author in one place but by a lot of authors in different time periods in different realms of the earth. So i do doubt and declined their theories on saying the bible being a fraud.

This i read from a science text book in Canada from a teachers philosophy and science and religion based encyclpedia. With the big bang happening and everything happen in a conincedent at the same time is absolutely zero. Those people in colleges and universities feel free to ask professeurs.

Can you prove it wrong?

He didn't give people cancer, he allowed them to happen. But let me ask you. If humans did not create what they have now and polluted the earth, you think cancer exists? You there would be so many decease and all the polution? And yea you could be right, some people might treat it as sadistic and sick, but he did do it he had done it to his servants. For example Job a disciple of his, taken away his wives daughters and homelands yet Job still believe in God. Like you said If a kid stabbed his mom to see if she would still love him, would you expect her to, but God did it to his own son as well in Christianity. He crucified his own son to save the world and his son still believed in him and did what was necessary. So if God sacrifice his own son to give us a place in the heaven, having cancer? sickness? while he can heal all these stuff in a thought or give us a place in the eternal heavens. I do believe it is a test to see if we trust in him again.

what is your point? i am jsut using sir issac newton as a referral. What Newton believed in was different than manson. Anyways when manson was trial and taken to a psychology test, he has mental problems. So don't use some idiots to compare with sir issac newton.

He didn't observed the creator. He believed that there's a creator and his creation is in alignment. I am not saying everything is in a perfect form. In my definition of the perfectionism is that everything is in place and that this world can function so normally that not much error was made. Thats what sir issac newton concluded.

Again, i must ask you, have you experienced death and ressurected? how do you know the life cycle is true yet you are hypothecizing.

 

you really don't know about how christianity started and everything do you. Read a little bit about how the romans were afraid in history texts and learn about that they created catholism to govern the christians. They were afraid there would be out break from the christians causing a new dynasty and overrunning the governemtn.

Untrue facts? they are truing then anything you can say or speak of. Let me tell you this i have to give certain proves to my opinion or i can say it's an opinion, it's just stupid wild imagination.

full stop? what are you trying to say?

Mordeth you use too many logic to explain about the existence of God. If we have no definite of exact answer. Logic alone would not solve it. we can only search for so many evident to try to prove him exists. Logic is what is within this world, it cannot explain whats outside this world. Logic probably wouldn't be the same if there were no time restraining. God alone cannot be explained or proved, it is wheter believe or not.


I must apologize if i had misconcluded to the fact that "my opinion is right and the rest is wrong" i once again apologize.

.... I was just suggesting i had referred to chrisitanity, so how did i say it was my opinions that right? May be you have misinterpreted it.

Let it be because you might be right, he allowed it to happen. and please prevent the profanity.

Again that is logic. God's existence cannot use logic to define because he is an infinite being and we are finite so we have a limit to what we know. Logic is just what we know about this world, logic restrain many things. but how do you know logic is always right, there possibly be something around the world. Logic tells us there is a source, but what if there really wasn't. We are using what we humans know to define what God is or if there really is a god? that is foolishness.

Fushigi.

 

do you think god really exists

spent all day thinking about this
yes actually i do think god exists
he has a plan mapped out of everyones lives.........
like wether you will be nice or whatever
but in the end noo matter how we try to go against it we are all still in gods plan

 

not neccesarily true, but not relative to the argument at hand.

not so.

in your previous example you used a computer programmer, his source, the idea, blah blah blah.. all objects from withint our universe, our closed and undisturbed system.

before the big bang, there was no time and space.. something alot of christians tend to forget.. so the concept of god as an ageless and all powerful being is a tad misleading. fine then, if we are to use this as an analogy, where did god come from?
you claim that nothing can come from nothing (seemingly blind to the notion that it has, and shall always be), but to prove your argument you summon a character that had no creation.. and always was. ( a small side note, the universe is expanding atm.. it will eventually reach a limit.. and it will contract, going back.. and back.. and back.. unto what? who knows.. perhaps another big bang, this nicely solves the problem of nothing from nothing doesn't it? sadly it leaves little room for the romance and luster of human life and dream)
if nothing can come from nothing, as you claim. where did god come from?
and don't try and argue me away with "he always existed" because you know as well as I that it is a childish and petty answer to the question.

I put it to you that the system know as 'god' is too complex and too ordered to have simply always existed.. now (and think hard about this), who created god?