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What is your belief regarding the existence of "God"?
- Thread starter SolusCado
- Start date
Not at all. I never said that God must exist because man is incapable of the idea on his own. I simply said that I find it hard to believe man did.
We have to accept at some point, a definition of what we are attempting to disprove, and that definition almost always includes the idea that God communicates his existence to someone. If we are able to disprove what people say about God, what are we left with? God can be treated like a scientific hypothesis. When it's premises are disproven, the hypothesis can be considered false.
I'm not sure applying the scientific method to something that by definition exists outside the realm of the natural world/universe is a valid approach. I think a socratic debate may work, but in any case you are correct - the debate can only be held against a common definition. This raises a good question though - why the need to disprove the existence of God in the first place? Most can agree that God can be neither proven nor disproven. So why bother trying to do either? Why should anyone need to justify their beliefs to anyone else?
God does not, by definition, exist outside of the realm of the natural world. He is said to have effects on the world, to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people, for instance, to answer prayer, to even bring success on those that believe in Him.
I do not agree that God cannot be proved or disproved. I can think of events that would prove a God, and I think some definitions of God, such as the Christian/Islamic/Jewish God can indeed be disproven.
Why should these beliefs be justified? Because they effect everything in society from who we go to war with to whether or not a woman is free to decide what to do with her uterus.
I do not agree that God cannot be proved or disproved. I can think of events that would prove a God, and I think some definitions of God, such as the Christian/Islamic/Jewish God can indeed be disproven.
Why should these beliefs be justified? Because they effect everything in society from who we go to war with to whether or not a woman is free to decide what to do with her uterus.
OK - I can accept that you find it hard to believe.
These are examples of his presence being made manifest, not on him being an actual part of Creation itself.
Name one.
Both of those examples are poor examples. Far more wars have been waged over non-religious reasons than religious. Religion, not God, has been an easy motivator, but not the cause. "Pro-lifers" claim that a woman doesn't have a right to kill her unborn baby, not because of anything their Bible says, but because they think it is wrong to take a life under any circumstances, and more to the point because they think that life begins at conception. That is a personal belief for these people, not supported Biblically.
SolusCado,
What isn't a fact ?
That different socities came up with their own concepts of god(s) ?
or that it all didn't come from one source ?
"For the Aryans of ancient India, they worshipped gods of Nature around them. This was because they could not understand or control the elements and hence, invested them with divinity and personified them For instance, Indra was the war god (thunder and rainmaker) and the most honoured of the Aryan gods. Surya was the sun god. Agni was the fire god; the power to heal, save, defend or destroy. It was a very important god, as fire was a very important element used in the sacrifice of animals."
"The Mayas believed that nature was closely related to the world of the supernatural. Thus, they worshipped many different types of gods that were too, like those of the Indians, related to nature. One example was the sun god called Kinich Ahau. They also believed that they could communicate with the gods who dwell in heaven through prayers, visions, and sacrifice. Another god of nature that they worshipped was the World Tree, which they believed was a giant blue-green tree that connected the world of humans to the supernatural world of spirits and gods. Gods were portrayed as men, women, animals, or creatures that looked like either a person or an animal"
"The Egyptians worshipped a number of gods and goddesses, most of which were believed to possess a human form, although some had the heads of birds and animals"
Which proves the point that they developed the idea on their own. We span out and came to inhabit the entire world and in every case no matter where man ended up they created their own version of god(s).
Your belief would require much more evidence of only one being passed on to ALL corners of the globe for it to make sense. But it wasn't that way. They created gods that were connected to their natural world. What was around them, not from a single story.
Don't you see, that is what we do. We create answers for those things we can not answer. It's the same reason man created demons and monsters. Imagination.
And the funniest thing about this is that is what you are doing right now.
You accept your belief as pure faith, you have just created a god where there was not one needed.
Do you believe everything you are told ? of course not. So why this ?
When you were a child, were you ever afraid of the monster in the closet ? What caused this ?
Which is why you are contradicting yourself. How the universe works has nothing to do with god or the idea of god.
You can't know god right ?
You can't know how god works right ?
Therefore you can't know if god created the universe.
You can't know if it's outside of the universe or within.
You can't know if we were given freewill or not.
We don't need god for the universe to work.
He doesn't interact. So all who claim to have interacted with him are liars, correct ?
If he only created and doesn't interact then no need to do anything. All is pre-arranged for us, including your death and apparent after life. God is meaningless at this point.
Nonsense. All you can do is claim it is supernatural and not bound by any law and is equivilant to magic. Otherwise try again.
How do you know the afterlife sits outside this time and space ?
This is a claim that you know there is an afterlife. Please explain how you know ?
No you're not claiming that you know at all
What isn't a fact ?
That different socities came up with their own concepts of god(s) ?
or that it all didn't come from one source ?
"For the Aryans of ancient India, they worshipped gods of Nature around them. This was because they could not understand or control the elements and hence, invested them with divinity and personified them For instance, Indra was the war god (thunder and rainmaker) and the most honoured of the Aryan gods. Surya was the sun god. Agni was the fire god; the power to heal, save, defend or destroy. It was a very important god, as fire was a very important element used in the sacrifice of animals."
"The Mayas believed that nature was closely related to the world of the supernatural. Thus, they worshipped many different types of gods that were too, like those of the Indians, related to nature. One example was the sun god called Kinich Ahau. They also believed that they could communicate with the gods who dwell in heaven through prayers, visions, and sacrifice. Another god of nature that they worshipped was the World Tree, which they believed was a giant blue-green tree that connected the world of humans to the supernatural world of spirits and gods. Gods were portrayed as men, women, animals, or creatures that looked like either a person or an animal"
"The Egyptians worshipped a number of gods and goddesses, most of which were believed to possess a human form, although some had the heads of birds and animals"
Which proves the point that they developed the idea on their own. We span out and came to inhabit the entire world and in every case no matter where man ended up they created their own version of god(s).
Your belief would require much more evidence of only one being passed on to ALL corners of the globe for it to make sense. But it wasn't that way. They created gods that were connected to their natural world. What was around them, not from a single story.
Don't you see, that is what we do. We create answers for those things we can not answer. It's the same reason man created demons and monsters. Imagination.
And the funniest thing about this is that is what you are doing right now.
You accept your belief as pure faith, you have just created a god where there was not one needed.
Do you believe everything you are told ? of course not. So why this ?
When you were a child, were you ever afraid of the monster in the closet ? What caused this ?
Which is why you are contradicting yourself. How the universe works has nothing to do with god or the idea of god.
You can't know god right ?
You can't know how god works right ?
Therefore you can't know if god created the universe.
You can't know if it's outside of the universe or within.
You can't know if we were given freewill or not.
We don't need god for the universe to work.
He doesn't interact. So all who claim to have interacted with him are liars, correct ?
If he only created and doesn't interact then no need to do anything. All is pre-arranged for us, including your death and apparent after life. God is meaningless at this point.
Nonsense. All you can do is claim it is supernatural and not bound by any law and is equivilant to magic. Otherwise try again.
How do you know the afterlife sits outside this time and space ?
This is a claim that you know there is an afterlife. Please explain how you know ?
No you're not claiming that you know at all
Afterlife? What makes you think you have an afterlife?
That all of these beliefs were not evolved from a singular more primitive faith developed before these civilizations spread into their present-day locales.
How do you know? All we know is what beliefs were made popular for these various nationalities. We have no idea how they originated. We have speculations as to how they evolved, but that is it.
How did I 'create' a god?
Why did I first choose to believe, or why do I believe now? (I believe I already answered that question.)
No, actually. Though I do recall being afraid of our basement at some point. I remember being afraid of the washing machine, and it was probably because I saw it shaking at one point, which sparked some other thought or memory that related it to a monster of some sort. But I never invented the idea of a monster.
No, how the universe works has to do with how our understanding of God's interaction with the universe works. If I don't know that an oven gets hotter by setting the temperature hotter, I have no idea how someone turning up the heat in an oven does so. Understanding that there is a temperature setting helps me understand how that person changes the temperature, but it doesn't tell me anything else about that person.
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "know God". We can most certainly know how God makes himself manifest to humanity.
Correct.
Of course not. How many times do I have to say that this is a key component of Christianity? We are instructed to have faith BECAUSE we can't know.
There is no reason to think a Creator of something is part of that something. It makes no sense, and everything about our understanding of God is that He isn't. You might as well say that I can't know if God is this keyboard I'm typing on. No, I guess I can't know that - but it wouldn't make any sense and no one is suggesting that it is.
I'm just going to stop addressing the free will points. Until you learn more about spacetime it is a wasted effort.
It isn't a matter of whether we need god for the universe to work or not. He either exists or doesn't. We can't know either way. The universe will most certainly continue along its way whether you believe or not. What difference does that make?
Again, attempting to discuss these points with you until you understand the nature of time is a wasted effort.
Don't know what you are talking about. If your questions at all involve the perception of time, then they are based in a Newtonian worldview, which is way out of date. If you like, I can start responding to such questions in such a way that points out how they are time-based, and thus irrelevant.
I don't know; I believe.
This is a claim that you know there is an afterlife. Please explain how you know ? No you're not claiming that you know at all
See above. If you are looking for me to somehow attempt to prove God's existence, don't bother. If I could, Christianity would make no sense. I never said I could; I said that it wasn't possible. What is so difficult about the phrases "believe" and "faith"? You believe there is no God, and I believe there is. Neither one of us can prove one position or the other, because we can't see beyond that which we can see.
It is part of my faith.
I would just like to point out that all any of you are succeeding in doing is pointing out that there are things I believe that I can't prove, which has been my claim from the beginning. Christians believe. You'll never find one who denies that claim. What's your point?
Doesn't matter. If he has effects on the natural world, those effects can be studied scientifically. If they do not exist, then the existence of that kind of God can be said to have been disproven.SolusCado said:
If we found a Bible made of solid gold 1 mile across buried a couple feet below the surface of the Moon.SolusCado said:
If any wars are caused by religion, we may consider religion to be important. Religion depends on the existence of God. I feel the more people that value rational thought over faith, the more we will be able to figure out rational solutions to our problems. If you think amegeddon is the inevitable conclusion to God's experiment with Earthly life, you might even bring help bring it about. Christians support Israel, not out of humanitarian reasons, or sympathy for Jews, but because Israel must be reborn before God can come and take all the good people to paradise. These can be dangerous ideas.SolusCado said:
The objection to abortion comes from the notion that God creates human life, and that it is special and distinct from animal life, that it contains a soul. The idea of the soul is currently an obstacle to stem cell research.
Ok, but finding that the effects can be explained through natural means doesn't mean anything, since it would make sense that the creator of the natural means intended the effects in the first place.
Why would that prove anything? There are already "theories" that homo sapiens were planted here, or at least influenced by ancient alients. Could those aliens not have left a Bible made of solid gold one mile across buried a couple feet below the surface of the moon?
That is wishful thinking to be sure. To be clear, religion has been used to motivate people to fight in wars, not to go to war in the first place. It is used as a tool, and if it weren't around, the warmongerers would find new tools to motivate the masses. The thing to be conquered with rationality is emotion, and even then there will sure be people who have completely rational reasons to go to war.
No doubt, but these are all examples of deviations from Biblical teachings.
Flat out false. I know plenty of religious right-wing conservative pro-lifers, and the reason every one of them has ever given for being anti-abortion is because they believe life begins at conception. The idea of a soul has never come up once.
Or to put it another way:1) Those who believe god exists.
2) Those who believe god doesn't exist.
What if, for example, it can be shown statistically that prayer has no effect? And what is the mechanism of his intervention? If his presence is indistinguishable from his absence, is it still logical to believe in him?SolusCado said:
But they are wrong, we did evolve here, there is evidence of that. And the Bible was written by ancient Jews. So if a giant gold bible were discovered on the Moon, I would consider that proof of His existence. I could think of something even more absurd, but you get the point. Evidence of God can be imagined, but it is never found.
We will likely always have rational reasons for fighting an enemy, at least we can eliminate the irrational ones. Religions have motivated wars, there are many examples in history.SolusCado said:
They are examples of the reasons why religion is not innocuous. One person's "deviations" are another's faith.SolusCado said:
So does bovine life, but we eat them. We are considered special because we are the only ones said to have a soul.SolusCado said: