Why do you belive/not belive in god?

Posted By: sPlKe

Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 02:43

i dont want to start a discussion if god exists or not. this cant be proven anyway.
what i want to know is, why do you belvie or not belive in him?

i find it amusing that poeple who have everything belvie in god but people who have nothing does not, while in other countries, people who have nothing belive in god just to have something to hold on...

pretty strange...

i for one, do not belive in god. my childhood was hard, not worht living and in fact, when i look aroudn in the world, i cannot see anything that makes me belive. nothing i see makes me think: i cant explain that, maybe there is a god, or oh good is looking over us ect...

it just does not make sense to me. besides, when i hear all that praising to god, i come to the conclusion that god really has issues. if he is almighty, the highest of the highest, why does he need our support? and who made him anyway?

Posted By: JibbSmart

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 03:00

i believe in God, coz i was raised that way. there was no significant cause of this belief, but i've always believed it wholeheartedly. He doesn't need our support, but appreciates our praise.

sorry not a huge in-depth reply. i'm a little busy at the moment but i thought i'd contribute.

julz

Posted By: Matt_Aufderheide

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 04:06

I dont believe in God because there is no reason to. There is no reasonable evidence that would lead one to believe that any kind of god exists. All we see in the universe are natural processes, so is it not logical that the universe is natural?

Posted By: lostclimate

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 05:22

i believe in god cuz... why not? i figure someone has to be right, so far from what i've heard of religions christianity is the closest to logical, so thats my choice, whats that harm, its better than saying im not going to even keep an open mind because there isnt incredible solid evidence and even on what an athiest might call an "off" chance that i am right, well then my ass is covered

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 09:24

I don't believe in God, because rationally and physically I don't think a God can really exist.

God usually is the answer to a lot of unanswered questions, well, that's not a got reason to believe in a God, nor does it make sense if you say 'it was God' every time you don't have an answer to a question.

Apart from the fact that there's really no supporting evidence, you can't really prove the concept based upon events in life. It's perfectly legit to demand some evidence before believing some ancient 'fairytale' for all we truly know. I'm also by far not convinced that the Bible is historical when it comes to most of the stories, quite the contrary actually. I also know that in Christianity and other religions they use the same methods of 'indoctrination', the same psychological tricks to convince people. Well, in short; I don't trust people who want to trick me into believing something, or say I would end up in hell otherwise. I mean, seriously, what kind of reasoning is that? You must believe in something you do not yet believe in otherwise you'll end up in something I also do not yet believe in. Riiiight, next ...

Besides, look around you, in great parts of the world people are living in such bad conditions and they sure as heck do not get help from anything supernatural, nor do I think that they all 'deserve' the lives they have. On the opposite side of things, when I look in my close vicinity I've got plenty of friendships, joy and love in my life, so it's also not true that you have to believe in order to 'receive' a nice life or something. (again, not a reason for which I would believe in a God in the first place, but at least we can all conclude that there's no such thing as a 'supernatural santa claus'.)

Most religious people I've talked to were mostly very unhappy with their lives. Not sure what I can conclude out of that, but some are really really envious and a lot of people that call themselves Christians can't actually be trusted and do not practice what they preach (7+ years of experience with this).

I'm also not believing in God, because, when in doubt, I usually go with what I do know, and that's the fact that evidence is non-existing. When there are no clues, no shred of evidence, no indirect indications that anything supernatural controls this world, well, sorry, but then I simply can't believe in God even if I wanted to.

Quote:

its better than saying im not going to even keep an open mind because there isnt incredible solid evidence

I'm not going to attack your opinion, because everyone may believe in what they wish, but what makes you think non-believers do not keep an open mind? Usually I think it's the other way around, people are so stuck in their religious belief that nothing else, even proof of the exact opposite of their beliefs, would convince them. Not quite an open mind, right? Again, nothing personal, I just hear this statement often,

Cheers

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 10:00

I don't believe in God because I don't want to. I don't want to give away the responsibility for my life to someone else, and I want to define the purpose of my existence myself.

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 10:19

Let's say that we should distinguish an emotional and a rational approch towards religion
The former is known as "faith"
You and me have not been given this gift
The latter is still, in my opinion, a open discussion

Suppose for a while that science should prove , with a reasonable degree of accuracy , that God does exist
Should you still claim that you dont beleive in God because you dont want..?

I dont think so, me not for sure

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 10:31

Well, the fact that science has found no trace of god gives you the choice to believe in him or not - just as you want. If God would suddenly appear in a telescope, you wouldn't have that choice anymore, naturally.

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 11:47

I simply mean that it makes no sense ,in my opinion , to look for an explanation for not beleiving in God

It is a circular reasoning
If God exists then you should be forced to revise your opinions whatever they are

The only consistent answer is :

I dont beleive in God because I have not got the faith
In other words it is an emotional approch not a rational one

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 12:52

Lol, that's exactly what I don't understand. I do understand that religion isn't based on 'ratio'.

Quote:

I dont beleive in God because I have not got the faithIn other words it is an emotional approch not a rational one

Okey, but so far we don't know if God exists, we don't know if there ever will be physical evidence for "God", so far we've found literally nothing, so wouldn't it be rational to not take God for granted like many people do? Isn't the rational idea that you stick to what you know, the lack of evidence? I do totally agree that people who do have faith are having this purely based on the emotional approach as you've called it,

Cheers

Posted By: capanno

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 13:04

Quote:

Well, the fact that science has found no trace of god gives you the choice to believe in him or not - just as you want.

lol.

Posted By: sPlKe

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 13:38

lets stray way from the topic a little bit.
some diggin into history provides us with the knowledge to know that there is no god.
ill back that up, here we go...

mostof you wont remember, but a few years ago, like thousand to twothousand or so, there were other cultures than nowadays. the greek, the rome culture and the nordics...

now there were more sure, like the egypts and stuff...

but they all hade one thing in common, despite their way to live, dress or belive: they had multiple gods...

you surely have heard a few names. zeus, odin, thor, ares, anubis ect...

actually, the only religion that ever had ONE god were the jews... or were they?

research provides us with the answer, that the jews originated from other cultures and basically merged. they too had more gods, as based on the other cultures, and for easier understanding, they gave them a name that resembles them all: jehova. so basically, jehova is not THE god, but merely the term for "gods"...

so waht happened? ever played silent letter? the game where you whisper your neighbor somethign into the ear, he whispers it to someone else and so on until the end somethign completely different comes out? exactly that happened...

the GODS became GOD and sicne christianity is actually a cheap ripoff of the jewish religion, influenced by the norse culture something liek this had to happen...

so basically, christianity as well as other religions i wont talk about here or else i have to fear a fundamentalist attack in my hometown is nothing more than an error that came to happen over time. belive it or not, thats scientific fact...

the long version of why i dont belive in god

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 13:38

The only rational approch is agnosticism
Atheism and theism are emotional issues , in my opinion

Posted By: LarryLaffer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 14:09

Quote:

The only rational approch is agnosticism
Atheism and theism are emotional issues , in my opinion

Hey.. a fellow agnostic... ... sup?

Spike,

You needed a full post to discard Christianity? I can do it in 10 words: Talking snakes, stone-age dinosaurs, rainbow promises, gimme a break!

You explained why you don't believe in religions, but not why you don't believe in a God

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 14:36

Quote:

The only rational approch is agnosticism

Okey, well you got me there I guess, you are right.

I was thinking as atheists more along the lines of agnostics. I myself am probably more a agnostic-atheist ... I know and accept that it's impossible to really know, but I do think chances are extremely small a God or Gods exist.

I'm well aware that the lack of evidence, theoretically speaking, can still mean God exists, but by the overwhelming lack of it (lol) I highly doubt it, apart from all other errors, misunderstanding and ignorance common in most current day religions.

I also totally agree with Spike's statement on history and the evolution of religions. How can Christianity for example claim to be 'the one religion and only truth'? They can't.

Cheers

Posted By: NITRO777

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/25/07 21:19

Well I dont think anyone really answered Spike's question except for jcl and perhaps Spike himself a little bit, (I think Julz also answered correctly)though even Spike violated his own rule about not speaking about whether God exists.

The reason that this question is interesting to me is because it addresses the roots of our worldview, instead of the branches of that worldview.

What I mean is that everyone gets an opinion about beleiving in God somewhere in their lives and they get this opinion BEFORE they start to amass evidence which supports their opinion. Everyone has a bias. I have talked online at talk.origins to scientists who freely admit that they didnt believe in God long before they got the phd's and the knowledge they have gained specifically about evolution in their field. So that really rules out any sort of objectivity. I also know many people that dont know much about the theory of evolution at all yet they persistently believe that it is true. So facts and evidences dont determine our beliefs, they only strengthen them.

So I would not answer this question with something like "I believe in God because I see it in the fabric of creation" or "I believe in God because some higher justice HAS to account for all the atrocities of this world". I wouldnt say those reasons because they are evidences of my belief, they are not what caused the belief to begin with. I believed in God well before I started to think of actual reasons why I believe in God. The belief in God preceded my "reasons" for believing in God because God pre-cedes and super-cedes reason itself.

So my main answer to the question is "I really dont know why I believe." It is a primal belief, very close to the root of who I am. I have always believed in God, I cannot remember a time when I did not. It is a belief which I had as a child and (subsequently) I see no reason for denying it.

I did not "fabricate" my belief in order assuage fears of the unknown,or for something to "hold on" to. I did not know what church was or traditional religion was when I was a child..., the belief has just always been with me.

Posted By: xXxGuitar511

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 00:07

[all opinions expressed in this post are simply OPINIONS!]

There is no god... There was a jesus christ, and he WAS a son of a non-existent god. HE DIED FOR NOTHING, but pride and fame. and you all live in his shadow. it's pathetic. Your crutch called religeon that gives you strength because you can forget your problems and pray that a savior will help you, but he won't! If this method works for you, then please, go for it. But don't be disapointed when theres nobody there...

You will hear nothihg but the echoes of silence in your head, blasphemy burnging into your tongue, the will of god stamped into your heart, and find nothing but lies. Believe in me, I'm the one that loves you...

Posted By: Matt_Aufderheide

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 06:47

Quote:

Well I dont think anyone really answered Spike's question except for jcl and perhaps Spike himself....

I answered the question, and it is the only possible correct answer. JCL's answer is flawed because it implies that desire should influence assumption.

I dont believe in God (or gods) because there is no reason to do so. Nothing in the experience of life indicates that there is a supernatural supreme being. In fact all the evidence of observation reveals only natural processes. That doesn't disprove the existence of God, but you can't you disprove anything like this..

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my opinion of God (which is irrelevant to the quesiton of belief):

If a supposed supreme being chose to reveal itself, I wouldn't be particularly interested in "worshipping" it, or "loving" it. Why would I? I would basically tell it to go jump in the lake because it is irrelevant to me. it amazes me that poeple care so much about God.. what good what it do you? What good is Heaven? What do you do there?

It's just not interesting, and frankly anyone who really wants this to be true is intellectually dull.

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 11:11

Quote:

JCL's answer is flawed because it implies that desire should influence assumption.

But it does. Desire is the first cause of faith. People desired to be helped by a superior being, and to be rewarded in an afterlife. Thus Man created God.

I just have the advantage that my desire matches reason. The wishes of Atheists - that no god may exist - were fulfilled by God, who does them the favor not to exist.

This is unlike the wishes of Theists - that God may exist - which weren't answered by God so far. What can we conclude? God hates Theists, and loves Atheists.

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 11:24

Quote:

JCL's answer is flawed because it implies that desire should influence assumption.

This is what I tried to explain in my previous post

Apart from that, while I definitly understand that "desire" can lead to theism , the opposite is a mistery to me
Atheism seems to be, for some people, a sort of faith.
Does anyone really wish to turn into dust ?
I dont think so

You can have a "bias" for religion but the other way round is a nonsense

Just the bloody , crude evidences can lead people to atheism

Posted By: JetpackMonkey

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 12:42

As a panentheist I kind of see the cosmos as a life giving entity which is kind of like god.. in that the cosmos creates life, it is life, and it is intelligent in that we are intelligent and contained within it. You don't have to see god as a biblical entity described in the Hebrew bible. So I believe in a kind of greater fractal cosmic computing god which is the underlying substance of being, something so great we cannot know it. The difference between an my POV and an athiest's is that I suspect that this system represents a greater intelligence imbued with meaning, is the substrate of life and love and despair and relief and free will.

Also, I think that most religions and spiritual movements ultimately try to connect to this cosmic computing force, but are heavily laden with different cultural sociological systems, which have advantages and disadvantages. In some ways these systems have become blueprints for society, which now that they are built may be ready to move beyond, and in other cases they represent intense cultural identity which gives easier access to this meaningful but ultimately unknowable fractal intelligence, and can continue to serve their followers. Even in the athiest experience looking introspectively into the human psyche we can find this force in the awe of our own intelligence, of beauty, and the elegance of mathematics. Heaven, life after death, sin, these are trivial and crude human mythologies.

Because of free will, we are accountable for our actions and must take direct responsibilities for our actions, out of respect for the inherent awesomeness of everything and everyone, we should learn to be decent and admire the essence of every person. And try to live in constant awe of our reality, if that means with ritual or without. Meditate, talk to it, talk to yourself, enjoy mathematics or appreciate beauty, to look for and live with awe, to be connected to it, by whatever means you can. For me, I feel I can best connect to it by the creative process, a means of emulating it.. by writing a game, a piece of music, fiction, painting, creating algorithms, solving problems, making things, painting, inventing characters, gathering and processing information.

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 12:53

Quote:

Just the bloody , crude evidences can lead people to atheism

Evidence has something to do with it, but there's more to it. Here's Atheism 101:

First, Atheism is very different to Agnosticism. Agnosticism is a rational conclusion, while Atheism is a philosophy or if you want, a religion.

Agnosticism says: God is invisible and inactive, i.e. he does obviously not influence any events in this world. Because there's no difference between an ever-invisible and inactive god, and a nonexistent god, it's irrational to believe in god's existence. I am rational, therefore I do not believe in god.

Atheism says: You came into this world by pure chance. This is a privilege - you can enjoy life - but it's also a responsibility and puts some duties on your shoulder. Those duties include to make good use of what you're given, especially your brain; to not delude yourself; to define a purpose to your life. Inventing a god is an attempt to evade those duties, therefore believing in god is immoral. That's why Atheists don't want to believe in a god.

Posted By: NITRO777

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 12:59

Quote:

I dont believe in God (or gods) because there is no reason to do so. Nothing in the experience of life indicates that there is a supernatural supreme being. In fact all the evidence of observation reveals only natural processes. That doesn't disprove the existence of God, but you can't you disprove anything like this..

Your root cause of belief seems to be exactly the same as mine, only opposite in that you seem to see atheism as a default state of birth and I definitely see theism as a default state at birth. It is somewhat uncomfortable to believe that people are just born diametrically opposed to one another, however I suppose I can accept it. It further reinforces my belief that wars are inevitable and any attempts at peace always have been and will always be useless.Why? Because people are just born for conflict.

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 13:04

Quote:

As a panentheist I kind of see the cosmos ....

As a matter of fact the difference between panentheist and atheism is quite thin

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 13:22

Quote:

Agnosticism says:

Agnosticism in my opinion says that there is no sure evidence neither in favour nor against the existence of God
At least this is what I meant in my previous post

Quote:

Atheism says:.... therefore believing in god is immoral.

I agree that religious people may be in some cases, not alwayes of course, immoral persons
The reason is, in my opinion, that extremism can generate monsters
Take Comunism for example
It is grounded on highly ethical principles, you have seen the results

A laicist view of life might be plain , flat and emotionless but it leads
to two magic words " Common sense "

Posted By: aztec

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 13:43

I believe in god because he helped me out in many situations
and he allways gives me the strengths within.
And even if there would be no god
why not try with him what would me life be without him?
nearly the same
so I give it a try.
hey and Sience guys also just are humans I dont allways believe them

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 17:46

Quote:

I believe in god because he helped me out in many situations
and he allways gives me the strengths within.
And even if there would be no god
why not try with him what would me life be without him?
nearly the same
so I give it a try.
hey and Sience guys also just are humans I dont allways believe them

Well a little bit opportunistic

Posted By: Robotronic

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/26/07 20:33

I do believe in an absolute, indestructible and eternal question mark, that maybe has some qualities of a "being" and some qualities of a "theory of everything" - and a lot of implications for my life - and because I�m such a lazy person, and because I grew up under western influence, I tend to call it (much shorter): God.

How did I reach this point?

I was never forced and I never forced myself into "faith" or a particular faith system. Actually - for me - it has nothing to do with faith. I�ve no idea, why people can have faith, or how this faith-thing works. I never pray and I don�t go to church.

In the end it�s a long and personal story, with some similarities to the story, that can be found in a book: "The Man without Qualities" - "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften".

It�s the story of a mathematician, who has lost his faith in the worldly world and finally he makes a mystic attempt. It ends with a very clear and detailed description of this special condition.. Well, actually the book doesn�t end. Musil unfortunately died in 1942 after writing on this book for approximately twenty years.

After I somehow finished this book, I wanted to write a screenplay. It somehow turned into a mystic experience, that lasted for seven days. Very strange, more like translating an abstract message into a text - instead of inventing it.

Maybe I could describe it like this: some events in my life remained in my memory, some books or pieces of art, movies etc. impressed me more than others. For a long time all these experiences remained unconnected with each other: like accidents.
Somehow in this mystic period "everything", all the details, seemed to have a big meeting in my head, they arranged in a way, that - for the first time - made sense.

I felt a huge contrast between the ordinary, real world - as it is, and a possible world - the world as it should be according to the "question mark", I mentioned above.

This happened almost ten years ago, but it changed my life completely.
I couldn�t say, that it became more easy and in a certain way the last ten years could be described as a series of attempts to convince myself, that these seven days were just a period of inspiration.

Well long story, short sense:
Mysticism is for me something very real, not mysterious. All my rational thoughts come to exactly the same conclusions. But what can I do with something that weighs so heavy?

I think, a life, according to what S. Freud called "the principle of reality" will make you probably more happy. It�s also much more practical.
Trust your genes! Just leave the difficult decisions to your DNA!
For me unfortunately it�s probably too late. Maybe I do belong to a crazy species, that should have died out a long time ago

Posted By: zazang

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/27/07 16:05

I have the exact same views as Matt..there is no reason to believe
in God's existance...and even if he does,then why should we fear
and worship ?.The closest I can ever think of the existance of God
as some kind of a neutral force,with no preferential treatement
to humans.

Posted By: Kinji_2007

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/28/07 02:05

Quote:

But it does. Desire is the first cause of faith. People desired to be helped by a superior being, and to be rewarded in an afterlife. Thus Man created God.

Did you not read NITROs post? It made sense and its something that most Christians do not realize. The majority of us have faith and love God at a very early age. Help and the afterlife mean nothing to most childeren.. thus you are wrong. You are wrong twice, ;-) God created you yet you have put yourself on a pedistal thinking your own wisdom is greater than His. Keep thinking. :-)

Quote:

I have the exact same views as Matt..there is no reason to believe
in God's existance...and even if he does,then why should we fear
and worship ?.

Look at every fact you can before making that choice. You should fear Him because if He created you then He has total control of what happens to you in life and the afterlife. Keep in mind, fear is not the motive for serving Him. Some worship Him because we realize what we were. He has great mercy whether you realize it or not. On you, on me.. on all of us. You speaking against Him.. sin in general, He hates these things yet you are still well and life goes on. I would call that mercy. YOU should praise Him. All of us have a certain line in the sand. I just hope you figure out that this life isnt possible without a Higher Power than the thought of evolution.

Quote:

Well a little bit opportunistic

List your reasons for not believing and I'll most likely say the same thing about you.

Posted By: zazang

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/28/07 07:22

wow..Kinji_2007 YOU talk as if you had breakfast with "him"

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/28/07 08:04

Quote:

List your reasons for not believing and I'll most likely say the same thing about you.

Many people beleive in God simply because they expect some help from him.
A sort of big brother
This is opportunism in my opinion
For obvious reasons an atheist can not be accused of opportunism since he does not expect any benefit for "not beleiving "

Posted By: William

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/28/07 12:11

Quote:

Many people beleive in God simply because they expect some help from him.
A sort of big brother
This is opportunism in my opinion
For obvious reasons an atheist can not be accused of opportunism since he does not expect any benefit for "not beleiving "

Many people also believe in God to give something back to him. I believe in God because he's given me an existence, and I want to use my God-given talents and abilities to help others and create new things. God has also helped me through many tough times before, so in a way, he also helps you prolong your existence and have a more stable life and/or mental state because of it. I'm also going to say that just outright believing in God and nothing else is different than following Christianity, ect. However, this thread is not about that. I just hope everyone understand that spiritual matters aren't as primitive as many would have it("your life is either A)believe in god, or B) don't believe in God... ").

It's funny however, calling people who believe in God and those especially who try and conduct themselves in a good way because of it "opportunistic". I would like to think that doing so is very hard, as you cannot give into your worldly instincts as often. I am not sure how atheists conduct their moral behavior, but if they believe anything goes, and life just runs by luck and chance, then that sounds quite easy to me. If this is true, then hopefully most Atheist don't rest on their "let the world run itself" ideology.

However, JCL has put Atheism in a different light than I've usually seen(by most real life individuals I know whom are Atheist). He's shown it as a way of conviction to oneself, with no rest, no laziness, a feeling of purpose. A purpose to make good the chance that you had life in the first place.

If you look at Atheism this way, it sounds very similar to believing in God. Both want to give back, both want to work hard and use their abilities. The only difference is one accepts the restrictions God provides, and gains wisdom and understanding because of it. The other, has free reign within his mind, makes his own restrictions, and is still forever searching. If there is no perspective but your own, and everything is chance, then how do you know your thoughts and motives are proper?

It's a general belief of mine that everyone knows what's right and are purposely blinding themselves to some degree. I'm sure there are many reasons for this, we all do this at times, it's natural instinct - to want things our way...

Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/28/07 13:01

Quote:

It's funny however, calling people who believe in God and those especially who try and conduct themselves in a good way because of it "opportunistic".

First of all I did not accuse of opportunism all people who beleive in God
I was referrring to a specific post
Read it again and you see it is actually opportunistic
Apart from it, even the great Pascal had an opportunistic view of religion

It is better to beleive in God
If He does exist you win , otherwise you have nothing to lose

So I suppose that a certain degree of opportunism is implicit in many ( again, not all) religious people

About "those especially who try and conduct themselves in a good way "...this is a pure invention of yours
I never mentioned these kind of people not at least in a negative way

Posted By: Kinji_2007

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/30/07 02:14

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wow..Kinji_2007 YOU talk as if you had breakfast with "him"

That would be "Him". I wish I had ate breatfast with Him. I think the biggest question I would have is: "What do I do now?". The thing most people dont get is that you cannot judge Truth by what you see. You can study facts.. study the Word.. you can even change your life and wait for signs. Never judge Jesus Christ, God, the Bible by what you "see" today. Most Christians are not actually Christians. Most claim to follow Christ yet they do not. Most know many things about the Bible yet they forget the simple Truths that lead them to the narrow road they assume they have found. I am guilty. Perhaps more guilty than anyone here. In short without full debate, I love Him and I serve Him yet I know I have not done enough. I can see the condition of the world and I realize that this is almost over.. what can I possibly do? Sorry for rambling on.. to answer the original post, God exist. Serve Him and watch as He proves Himself time and time again when there is NONONE else to turn to. At the moment I live a life most would desire. Hard work, more than average pay. Family, love.. a perfect life in most peoples eyes. I have been through a darker time in life. I had nothing, no money, no home.. it was hard. My wife and I had just moved in together not sure if we could even stay in that home for another month because of money. We spent many nights eating less than the homeless would. Amounts to nothing. Things most certainly got worse before they got better. No need for explanation. Now this day we have faith in God and my family lives far beyond what we did before yet I wonder? Is this the road I am supposed to lead? Regardless.. God has provided for me when there was no other that would have. He exists and we'll answer to Him. You included... pray for eye-salve.

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It is better to beleive in God
If He does exist you win , otherwise you have nothing to lose

Keep in mind that even though I have said it.. it does not make it your belief if you just "think" something. If you do not really believe then you are in trouble. Find the facts and base your faith on it. Keep clear of clear anti-christ on your path to Truth.

Posted By: xXxGuitar511

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/30/07 03:35

This is the most pointless thread I've read here.

Neither Athiests or Christians can understand how it is from the others point of view. It's almost like understanding infinity.

Christians believe in their savior, so they are blind to the feeling of no savior. Same with the "Athiests" here. They don't believe in a savior, so they won't understand how the christians feel.

I've been reading this thread since it started, and all I see is arguments towards the other side, back and forth, but nobody takes the time to understand the others perspective.

...Pointless.

Posted By: zazang

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/30/07 04:20

@xXxguitar511...Indeed,from what I've seen,such threads never change anyone's views..even if I am an athiest,I respect what believers want to believe..but in return I expect the same about my beliefs

Posted By: sPlKe

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 04/30/07 04:31

im not an atheist.
im an agnostic...

the difference is, that atheists know that they belive nothing and agnostics belive that they know nothing...

and this thread is not useless at all, since I wanted to know why people belive what they belive. i dont want to change opinions, i want to know opinions...

Posted By: testDummy

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/14/07 03:15

If you want to prove your self-esteem is at 'healthy levels' you can select more relevant questions: Does 'god' believe in me? Does god worship at my temples?
An author may imply god is male or female. So evidently god has sex organs? (Ok, so that might mean that in some languages a pencil might have a penis. Perhaps, some labeling is just as flawed as my logic.) But the very same author may suggest that god is ominpotent and dee root node, the source of all creation. Like a mentally challenged child I ask: If god has sex organs, why?
If you like, you can claim that your penis is larger than NULL, ...larger than god's. You can even feel good about it, if that suites your fancy. Really, when is god going to 'whip it out' and prove otherwise.

Aren't you important and special? Isn't everyone important and special? Do you believe in god? Pishawww. God should have faith in you. Praise you!
The distinguished Captain Planet put it rather well: "The power is yours!!!"

Disclaimer: There is no indication that Anthony Robbins endorses any statement this post. However Zig Zigler may endorse some statements in this post, 'postmortem'. While vacationing in hell, I asked A. Crowley personally, and seemingly, he endorses everything in this post.

Posted By: Irish_Farmer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/14/07 20:44

I believe in God.

Here's some reasons why.

The universe can either a. exist or b. not exist. But it exists. Which proves nothing yet. However, the universe hasn't existed forever, which means it has had a cause. That cause cannot be natural, because any natural cause would be part of the universe which then means that the universe exists, and you're saying that the universe created itself at that point. So at the very least there is a creative "something" that caused our universe to be. And based on the fact that there was a cause, this "something" MUST be above and beyond our universe, which includes time, etc.

There are some clues that this "something" is personal.

1). The finely-tuned nature of the universe leads me to believe that something personal "chose" this universe.
2). Information doesn't spontaneously arise. This means that the information on this planet: DNA, came from a source with the intent of creating it. That intent gives me more clues that this creative "something" is personal.
3). Information, when transmitted over and over, does not change into anything meaningful. It gets garbled, to put it one way. So whether or not the earth is old, evolution couldn't have happened. Furthermore, this means that all organisms have their origin in some versions of themselves that were at least "more perfect" than current genomes. All of this provides further clues about the personal nature of this "force".

Where this leaves me, is at some form of deism. Since this thread isn't about why I'm a Christian, I'll stop here.

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/15/07 00:24

I hope you don't mind

, but I'd like to comment a bit on your view.

You seem to assume there's no such thing as infinity then, when I understand correctly? Because when something does exist, you seem to assume it wasn't always there. It's certain the universe has been different from what it's now, but it's not certain that it wasn't always around already, although very different. I think ultimately our problem is time, someone should really design a time-machine (if possible at all

) so we can figure out certain things.

I'm not attacking your view, but it really seems to me you are thinking a bit like this; "because we don't know, it or there has to be God, because God gives a purpose". Actually, when I'm thinking about it, that's circular reasoning, exchanging one uncertainty for another to explain both, mmm,

Just my thoughts there though,

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im not an atheist.
im an agnostic...

the difference is, that atheists know that they belive nothing and agnostics belive that they know nothing...

and this thread is not useless at all, since I wanted to know why people belive what they belive. i dont want to change opinions, i want to know opinions...

Agnostics usually say you can't possibly know if there is a God or not. Atheists believe there can't be a God.

If people say a lack of evidence is no evidence for the contrary, then I must admit that's probably right when it comes to logic. However, in reality you can't know if th�t's right. What you definitely can not do based on that lack of evidence, is claim that something does exist. Personally I'm pretty sure God can't exist, because of it's artificial and 'supernatural' definition,

Cheers

Posted By: Irish_Farmer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 05:19

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I hope you don't mind , but I'd like to comment a bit on your view.

Not at all. I love this sort of discussion.

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You seem to assume there's no such thing as infinity then, when I understand correctly?

I couldn't tell you for sure whether or not there is an actual infinite "something." There may be some thing that is infinite, that I just don't know of.

Space, perhaps?

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Because when something does exist, you seem to assume it wasn't always there.

No, what I know is that by the nature of time, time could not have existed forever. There has to be a starting point. Time cannot be an actual infinite, it can only be a potential infinite.

Therefore, the universe had a beginning.

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It's certain the universe has been different from what it's now, but it's not certain that it wasn't always around already, although very different.

No, its quite certain that the universe hasn't been around forever. Otherwise we would never have reached "today". If you can keep stacking days one on top the other one day at a time (and have been doing this for an infinite amount of time) there will be a never-ending amount of days that would never happen because there would be an infinite amount of days before getting there. The same is true going back in time, so we can deduce that it isn't possible for the universe to have existed forever.

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I think ultimately our problem is time, someone should really design a time-machine (if possible at all ) so we can figure out certain things.

Unless that time machine throws us into alternate universes, and then we aren't getting anywhere.

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I'm not attacking your view, but it really seems to me you are thinking a bit like this; "because we don't know, it or there has to be God, because God gives a purpose".

Well, it seems to me that you substituted my certainty for your own uncertainty and then projected. I'm certain that the universe had a start, I'm certain that it was "chosen" to be the way it is (finely-tuned, I mean), and I'm certain that life was designed in some way. This all implies that the universe, and life is the end result of the will of some personal force that's "beyond" the universe. To me.

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 13:00

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Agnostics usually say you can't possibly know if there is a God or not. Atheists believe there can't be a God.

Not 100% correct. We don't believe there can't be a God. We just don't believe in God.

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No, what I know is that by the nature of time, time could not have existed forever. There has to be a starting point. Time cannot be an actual infinite, it can only be a potential infinite.

This is your personal opinion, but most mathematicians and physicists wouldn't agree with you. No one has ever proven or found an argument why time should need a starting point.

The same goes for the universe. Our own universe certainly had a starting point, but something else likely existed before. It is possible, but unlikely that the universe came from nothing. Today, physics can only speculate what that "something" was, like an 11-dimensional eternal space with colliding membranes as string theory suggests. But I'm sure in the next decades we'll learn more about what was before the universe.

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 23:29

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Not 100% correct. We don't believe there can't be a God. We just don't believe in God.

Woops, mixed part of my own view with a definition there. :O

Cheers

Posted By: Irish_Farmer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 23:33

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This is your personal opinion, but most mathematicians and physicists wouldn't agree with you. No one has ever proven or found an argument why time should need a starting point.

Logic demands it.

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It is possible, but unlikely that the universe came from nothing.

rofl

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 23:43

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Logic demands it.

Well, not really. If something has an end, it's logical to assume it had a start. However we're more or less right in the middle of knowing either side, right? We don't know if time will end, nor do we know if it started... Logic doesn't demand infinity to have a start, and you can't rule out the possibility of time being infinite.

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rofl

If you're slightly lost in this logic, look at all negative values out there. Basically something out of nothing, in my opinion would be a negative number becoming positive. A negative size doesn't quite exist, right, or does it?

Cheers

Posted By: Irish_Farmer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/16/07 23:53

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Well, not really. If something has an end, it's logical to assume it had a start. However we're more or less right in the middle of knowing either side, right? We don't know if time will end, nor do we know if it started... Logic doesn't demand infinity to have a start, and you can't rule out the possibility of time being infinite.

I've already plainly stated my views on this. And no, logic doesn't say that infinity has a start. By its definition, infinity will never have a start because you can always traverse an infinite number of days before getting there, so you'll never reach it. If you reach the start, then you know it isn't infinite.

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If you're slightly lost in this logic, look at all negative values out there. Basically something out of nothing, in my opinion would be a negative number becoming positive. A negative size doesn't quite exist, right, or does it?

No, believe me I'm not lost on the logic at all. If nothing, including time, existed, then at what point did existence start? If nothing exists, it will exist for an eternity because there will be no time. That means the universe will never begin.

A negative size violates the law of non-contradiction.

Furthermore, that's a poor analogy. Something coming out of nothing isn't paralleled by a positive number coming out of a negative number. That would be something coming from something.

Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/17/07 00:06

I wasn't talking about numbers, but negative sizes. A negative size doesn't exist, which is exactly what we were after more or less; 'nothing'. Extremely small things still have positive sizes. So, the analogy was good in my humble opinion.

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A negative size violates the law of non-contradiction.

Contradicting, how? We can't measure negative sizes, but it's not contradicting, or is it?

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By its definition, infinity will never have a start because you can always traverse an infinite number of days before getting there, so you'll never reach it. If you reach the start, then you know it isn't infinite.

If something goes on forever it's infinite, thus theoretically it can have a start. Tricky part is, how do you know it will go on forever? I guess, potentially infinite is a correct description. There's no real way of knowing if it is infinite, but assuming it is infinite (let's assume you've seen there's no end for logic's sake), then why wouldn't this be absolute infinity?

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If nothing exists, it will exist for an eternity because there will be no time.

Eternity is a long time though.

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That means the universe will never begin.

Which wasn't the case, so either time has always been there 'so it could happen' or the absence of time is irrelevant for a universe to come into existence. Naturally at some point time must simply exist yes, but if there are no positive sizes, no distances and no motion then even if time does exist in this nothingness, it'll be "neutral" and non-indicative. I think time is quite artificial actually, but that's a different topic altogether,

Cheers

Posted By: Irish_Farmer

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/17/07 23:27

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I wasn't talking about numbers, but negative sizes. A negative size doesn't exist, which is exactly what we were after more or less; 'nothing'.

Ok, I guess I see your analogy....though I'll have to revisit why this is still a problem, later in the post.

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Contradicting, how? We can't measure negative sizes, but it's not contradicting, or is it?

Yes, a negative size is not logically possible. Size is the measure of an object's spacial dimensions. The measure of spatial dimensions will always leave you with a positive number. You can't have a square-circle, and you can't have a line that's -3 inches long. It hurts my brain even trying to imagine such a thing.

I don't know if that's really the law of non-contradiction, I guess, but its illogical and impossible.

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If something goes on forever it's infinite, thus theoretically it can have a start.

Its a potential infinite. Which is what the universe is.

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Tricky part is, how do you know it will go on forever?

You don't, I guess. That's why they call it a 'potential' infinite.

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There's no real way of knowing if it is infinite, but assuming it is infinite (let's assume you've seen there's no end for logic's sake), then why wouldn't this be absolute infinity?

Because an absolute infinite has no beginning or end, which is what seperates it from a potential infinite. That's just its definition. And it doesn't help anyway. If you're trying to prove the universe has been around forever, you can't postulate that it has had a beginning, which is what my point was.

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Eternity is a long time though.

Exactly.

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Which wasn't the case, so either time has always been there 'so it could happen' or the absence of time is irrelevant for a universe to come into existence.

The existence of the universe, and the absence of non-existence is an interesting subject. However, this was my point with there being some extra-universal force. Something that would make time irrelevant, because if nothing existed above and beyond the universe, then the universe (having a beginning, and needing a start based on my previous points) would never have started. So you're kind of following my trail here, we're just probably going to part ways when it comes to there being some kind of extra-universal "cause" or "force", which may or may not be personal (eg God) depending on further inference.

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Naturally at some point time must simply exist yes, but if there are no positive sizes, no distances and no motion then even if time does exist in this nothingness, it'll be "neutral" and non-indicative. I think time is quite artificial actually, but that's a different topic altogether,

Ok, time is somewhat illusory. But if this is truly a "nothingness", then time wouldn't exist. Otherwise that would defeat the purpose of the nothingness.

Posted By: jcl

Re: Why do you belive/not belive in god? - 05/18/07 08:50

I don't want to be nitpicking, but you're misunderstanding the concept of potential and actual infinity. This concept was introduced by Aristotle, and has nothing to do with whether an infinite quantity has a "beginning" or not.

An example of potential infinity is the sequence of real numbers. An example of actual infinity is the cardinal number of the set of all real numbers. Another actual infinity is the famous number "Omega", the smallest number that is greater than any finite number.

Infinities in nature, like space and time, are usually treated as actual infinities. Space and time are similar in modern physics - general relativity makes no basic distinction between them. If you had some starting point for space, or for time, they'd still be actual infinities, as long as there's no ending point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

And, just FYI: negative sizes are used in physics all the time. The time-space metric becomes negative along certain curves, for instance movement faster than light.