To start off on a debate since it is allowed, I am going to go with one of the main subjects that appear in most people's discussions. Is God real?
RULES
-No flaming or trolling. Emphasis on flaming. Keep the argument down to a mild level.
-Back up what you say. I know it's hard for this, but don't just say something like "God is fake". Tell WHY you think God is fake, and use science to back it up if you have to. If you want to say "God is real", then the same goes for you. If you are going to use sources, then make sure they are credible, not just from someones blog (unless they source on that, and THAT source is credible).
-Keep this as mature as possible. This is basically like repeating the first rule, but don't let your emotions/beliefs get in the way of your argument. It makes you and your whole case look childish.
STARTING ARGUMENT:
God is not real because there is no scientific proof that he ever existed and did what he did (create people, make the world, etc.).
is which god real?
the christian one? Alah? Zeus? Quetzalcoatl?
any/all of them?
the existence of a divine being cannot be scientificaly proven, or disproven.
>>302
winner
>>302
Actually it can be proven; we just don't know how or if or whatever but God or the aliens who created us could well just appear in Earth tomorrow and thus it's scientifically proven. It just cannot be disproven.
>>304
The question is: How can you be convinced that the being has divine power and not highly advanced technology?
>>305
No, the question is: what does "divine being" even mean in a human context?
this thread has been going around in circles with people rising the same arguments over and over again, why don't you all read the whole thing before even thinking that you have something worth to say?
this thread has been going around in circles with people rising the same arguments over and over again, why don't you all read the whole thing before even thinking that you have something worth to say?
it all only boils down to one thing: belief or unbelief.
Everyone who posts in threads like these deserves a long and painful death, including me.
And especially >>300 for bumping it.
God may be real but it is not in the way the bible says.
I notice that after 312 posts, still nobody has come up with a single definition for that "God" thingie.
God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipotent
it seems narcissistic of us humans to try to fully understand something like the concept of an all powerful being with the amount that we learned in our meager exisitance
You know... any good discussion about God should start with a list of definitions.
So, the question "Does God exist?" has to come up and narrow it down to the following definitions:
Starting the argument without actually defining the parameters is stupid. In the end all you get is a dozen idiots beating off their meats ideologically, to no benefit.
God is not a single concept, but has multiple incompatible meanings for different cultures. A god of rain would not at all be considered a god by certain cultures, if humans can also induce rain. Some people would consider an immortal a god, others not.
As for god being almighty, omniscient, etc,... There is a logical flaw there. An entity so complete can only be the full universe/reality. And if so, why not just call it reality, universe? And if it's not, then it can't be almighty.
Also, I can't imagine that there can be something which has a will, but is still infinite. Having a will implies a limit on which to exercise this will.
All in all, I find the concept of infinite almighty god the most broken there is. But hey, if it makes people happy to feel they have a strong father looking for them, why not?...
exactly, it's not possible for humans to try to perceive something that is infinite and shit like that and try to understand it with our finite knowledge. it's like trying to cram an entire ocean into a water cup, it's just not possible, at least for now
I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that if you want a useful discussion, do it properly.
Because you can discuss about the nature and existence of God as a construct of intelligence.
You can discuss the existence of the experience of divinity, because if anything, there seems to be some kind of evidence of something happening when one meditates or experiences an ecstatic vision (what happens? Why, parts of the brain shuts down. Ha ha, I know right?).
You can discuss the effects of God as a historical reality, which not only was responsible for the Sistine Chapel and the poetry of Rumi, but also the Inquisition and pogroms.
You can even discuss the absurdity of a God who exists as a separate, material entity, and point out the philosophical and evidence-based holes, and conclude, quite rightly, that God has no material existence.
You can even point out that doctrines like fundamentalism are bad because they are ideologically and philosophically untenable. After all, what kind of God only allows a limited number of his creations access to paradise and damns the rest to eternal suffering? You can say these things, and you can make claims about it.
But to start the conversation saying, "So... does God exist?" You're trolling. Not only that, but it's old trolling.
>it's not possible for humans to try to perceive something that is infinite and shit like that and try to understand it with our finite knowledge.
If you are speaking about god, allow me to disagree,... Of course, one could say that god is by essence impossible to understand by humans, and then it would be impossible to discuss about it. But that's just a postulate. You can also assume that god is just an human construct and as so totally within reach of human understanding.
Basically, you can't postulate that god is outside of human understanding. It may well be that it's the case, but we don't know, and can't assume that.
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
In short: HA HA HA, CONGRATULATIONS. YOU'RE FUCKED NOW.
the only way i can think of to counter the assertion of, "if god is omni-all, why is there still evil?" is to present my fellow anonymous with Alvin Plantinga's line of reasoning towards the exisitance of evil:
along with this line of reasoning:
The second is a pathetic cop-out, and I can't imagine anyone taking that seriously. As for the first, I'd say that having a plan that involves massive suffering would preclude one from being "good". Especially if one is omnipotent and can create any outcome by just willing it into action, without the need for a plan of any kind.
The fact that god can't achieve a greater good without evil means he's not almighty,...
Maybe you should also define omnipotence.
Able to do anything, even leave the toilet seat down.
God is real. nuff said. AND HE ROCKS!!!
in before (and probably after but I'm too lazy to check) giant unmovable rock argument
Forget God, what if an unstoppable rock hits an immovable rock?
The unstoppable rock bounces off, because changing trajectory is not stopping.
"I'd say that having a plan that involves massive suffering would preclude one from being "good"."Problem is, without God, you have no absolute standard by which you can call anything 'good.'
"The fact that god can't achieve a greater good without evil means he's not almighty,..."Problem is, without God, you have no absolute standard by which you can call anything 'evil.'
Is an action morally good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is morally good?
>>332 Depends, if it bounces in the exact opposite direction then it would have stopped to do so.
>>334 Oh noes. Quick, someone form a working group.
If we're talking Elohim/Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah, for this particular God it's the former.
God says murder is evil, but if God tells you to sacrifice your own son than it's evil not to obey him.
So biblically speaking the only sin is disobedience.
Is an action morally good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is morally good?Neither. An action is morally good if it conforms to the charcter of God.
"So biblically speaking the only sin is disobedience."Nope, but murder does fall into the category of disobedience. Murder is an absolute moral wrong. Keep in mind that murder is 'that killing which is unlawful.' If God commands it, it is not unlawful, and therefore not murder.
Yes, you do. Human suffering.
>>339
This reduces God's benevolence to a tautology: "God is good because God conforms to the character of God." I see no reason why it could not, hypothetically, have instead been in God's character to revel in human suffering, rendering such a characteristic morally good. Thus morals that derive from the nature of God are just as arbitrary as those which derive from the nature of humans.
Moreover, it would seem that this makes God incapable of committing evil, and thus not omnipotent.
> If God commands it,
Thank you for proving my point.
All sins are equal in Yahweh's eye because they all derive from disobedience of His commands.
> Murder is an absolute moral wrong
Not according to the Word of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:3
3:1 To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up [that which is] planted;
3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Yes, you do. Human suffering.
Moreover, it would seem that this makes God incapable of committing evil, and thus not omnipotent.The ability to contradict oneself is not a power, it is a weakness. You might just as well say, God can't be omnipotent, because he can't be God, and not be God at the same time and in the same way.
All sins are equal in Yahweh's eye because they all derive from disobedience of His commands.Nope, all sins are NOT equal, all sins, however, make us equally undeserving of God's grace.
A time to killPerhaps you should read my post again. Murder is that killing which is UNLAWFUL. Lawful killing is not murder.
You can't answer those questions about your god, either, so I don't see why I should bother.
You can't answer those questions about your god, either, so I don't see why I should bother.You positted 'human suffering' as an absolute moral standard, I didn't. Support your claim.
And you posited 'god'. You support your claim first.
And you posited 'god'. You support your claim first.God, as He has revealed to us, has created us in His image to conform to His moral nature. God, is universal, not made of matter, and invariant, and thus accounts for the nature of absolute (universal, abstract, and invariant laws). An absolute moral wrong is anything which does not conform with the moral nature of God, as He has revealed to us. Now, you may not agree with the support for my claim, but, what is yours? What is your absolute standard of 'human suffering,' and by what absolute standard is it 'bad?'
Which god is that, exactly? There are a whole lot of them to choose from, and they all have different laws. Which ones should we follow?
And which one is that? Back up your answer.
Is it just me, or is the postulation that an absolute moral standard of good and evil would not exist without God completely irrelevant to theodicy?
The problem of evil does not cast any doubt on God's existence: it casts doubt on whether God, if He exists, is both benevolent and omnipotent as is the popular Judeo-Christian conception of Him. If God and/or morality don't exist at all, then the problem is moot.
As such, I don't think it even belongs in this thread. You should start a new one if you want to debate it further, separate from the problem of God's existence.
Anyway, theodicy aside, proofthatgodexists.org's central argument as I understand it seems to be that all absolutes (logic, morality, uniformity of nature) have to derive from a transcendental and likewise absolute existence - God.
My question is, why does this absolute have to be God? Why can't it just be an absolute? If it is a god, how do we know it is the Judeo-Christian God? Since it's transcendental, it is impossible to formulate any meaningful theories about it, and I don't see there could exist any evidence of its precise nature either.
it casts doubt on whether God, if He exists, is both benevolent and omnipotentOnly if one begs the question by presupposing that God could not have a morally sufficient reason for the evil in this world.
My question is, why does this absolute have to be God? Why can't it just be an absolute?Posit what you believe, and I will be happy to refute it.
Since it's transcendental, it is impossible to formulate any meaningful theories about it, and I don't see there could exist any evidence of its precise nature either.Again, only if one begs the question by presupposing that God could not reveal things about Himself to us in such a way that we can know them for certain.
> Nope, all sins are NOT equal
James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
Please find a scripture passage that lays claim to a hierarchy of sin to support your argument. No Dante, please.
> Murder is that killing which is UNLAWFUL. Lawful killing is not murder.
God makes the law.
Biblical law is God's word.
Breaking that law is sin.
Sin is disobedience.
> Posit what you believe, and I will be happy to refute it.
I believe that we cannot know anything (in the sense that it is usable as a scientific fact) about anything that is transcendental. Other than its existence or non-existence, perhaps.
> Again, only if one begs the question by presupposing that God could not reveal things about Himself to us in such a way that we can know them for certain.
Perhaps you could present some examples, assuming God has done such things already and your counter-argument is not purely hypothetical.
> The one true God of Christianity, as He has revealed to us.
He has not revealed this to me. I'll need some actual proof first. And yes, I am the same person, and I will back up my claim as soon as you back up yours, as you made your claim first.
And yes, I am the same person, and I will back up my claim as soon as you back up yours, as you made your claim first.I did back up my answer. God is the source of absolute morality as He has revealed to us. As I said, you may not like my claim, or how I back it up, but, I believe it is your turn, then we can compare notes. What is the absolute standard by which you determine what 'suffering' is, and what is the absolute standard by which you call it 'wrong?'
I believe that we cannot know anything (in the sense that it is usable as a scientific fact) about anything that is transcendental. Other than its existence or non-existence, perhaps.How about you tell me how it is possible for you to know ANYTHING?
Perhaps you could present some examplesKnowledge, or proof of any kind, is evidence that God exists, for without Him, neither would be possible.
> I did back up my answer. God is the source of absolute morality as He has revealed to us.
You are begging the question. You need to give some proof that the god you are referring to is actually the christian god. You have not provided any so far.
> As I said, you may not like my claim, or how I back it up, but, I believe it is your turn, then we can compare notes.
How about I just say "I'm right, end of story"? It would be as valid as your claim.
So no, you still haven't done anything. Provide some justification that the god that you say has to exist for logic or whatever to be valid actually is the christian god.
So no, you still haven't done anything.Well, as I said, you may not like my claim, or how I justify it, but your refusal to even attempt to justify your own speaks volumes.
> How about you tell me how it is possible for you to know ANYTHING?
By observing it with my own five senses. We went over this back in >>177-230 or thereabouts. Was it not resolved to your satisfaction?
> Knowledge, or proof of any kind, is evidence that God exists, for without Him, neither would be possible.
I don't understand why knowledge would be impossible without God. Please elaborate.
As for "proof", such a concept only exists in formal sciences such as logic and mathematics, and is necessarily based on a set of axioms.
Is God an axiom?
By observing it with my own five senses.How do you know that your senses, or the reasoning with which you interpret them are valid? Surely you would agree that knowledge cannot be attained through invalid senses or reasoning?
I don't understand why knowledge would be impossible without God. Please elaborate.In order to know anything, one would have to know everything or have revelation from someone who does, else it would end in an infinite regress of 'and how do you know that?' The Christian claim is that God has revealed some things to us, in such a way that we can know them for certain (i.e. murder is wrong, love is right). So if you were to ask me, how I know that murder is wrong, I would answer, 'because God has revealed this to us, and God knows everything.' Hopefully you can see from my point above that claiming knowledge is gained autonomously through the senses, doesn't cut it.
As for "proof", such a concept only exists in formal sciences such as logic and mathematics, and is necessarily based on a set of axioms.Then that very statement would have to be invalid as it cannot be proven.
Is God an axiomI would say that God has made himself evident to us, not that He is self-evident.
You have been owned dozens of times, GTFO
So basically, you think you can make any invalid claim, and then just say "you may not like my claim" and thus escape from ever having to justify anything you say? That is incredibly dishonest. Hardly befitting of a christian.
Now, a challenge: Prove your claims, or never post again.
> How do you know that your senses, or the reasoning with which you interpret them are valid? Surely you would agree that knowledge cannot be attained through invalid senses or reasoning?
Consensus and verification. The vast majority of people would be able to agree, for instance, that the sky and the ocean are a similar hue. Someone arguing otherwise would be grounds for the investigation of a visual or mental defect in the individual, or perhaps a local anomaly in the sky/ocean (pollution these days...)
Now, I'm aware that reasoning seems to contradict the argument against the theistic worldview, since the majority of the world population does believe in a God or gods. However, there are major disagreements about the nature of this God, and that is enough to give me doubt. Christians are the most populous, but they're split about half-and-half over the question of whether the Pope is Christ's representative on Earth. Twenty percent of the world believes there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. About ten percent believes in Vishnu, Shiva, etc and another ten percent don't believe in gods per se, but believe one can achieve a godlike state by achieving enlightenment. So on and so forth.
I think that when so many people disagree about something so vehemently, something odd is going on, and it's probably not that seventy percent of humans on Earth are brain-damaged.
Another major problem with spiritual knowledge and experiences - demonstrated by your failure, thus far, to explain the precise nature of how God has revealed himself to you - are that they are almost wholly ineffable, nor transferable by any other means. Most sensory experiences are ineffable when you get down to the basics - try and describe "blue" without using any sort of analogy, simile or metaphor - but at least one can point to the sky and say "That's blue." As far as I know, there's nothing you can point to and say "That's God." You can merely present your ontological arguments, have us read the prophecies come of other people's spiritual experiences from thousands of years ago, and hope that we arrive at a similar epiphany.
I doubt your spiritual beliefs because, being non-transferable, there is no way for me to evaluate for myself whether they are true observations or the product of faulty senses or reasoning. Properly done science can always be reduced to observations; one can travel to the Galapagos and see the same things Darwin did back when he wrote his controversial little book. But when you point at logic, I see only a set of convenient axioms. When you point at morality, I see a social construct.
> Then that very statement would have to be invalid as it cannot be proven.
It cannot be proven that there exists no concept of proof outside of formal sciences such as logic and mathematics? I suppose so, but that just makes my statement falsifiable, not false.
Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
As I see it, the reason that proof only exists in formal sciences is that in the natural world, there are an infinite number of potential confounding factors which may disprove a theory once they are discovered. Therefore certainty is impossible unless you remove the natural world and replace it with a set of axioms - such as the bases of logic and mathematics.
By the way, two other interesting pages on Wikipedia I found while researching that last post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Argument_for_the_Non-existence_of_God
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_%28logical_fallacy%29 (something that everyone posting in would do well to keep in mind)
So basically, you think you can make any invalid claim, and then just say "you may not like my claim" and thus escape from ever having to justify anything you say?Um, nope, I said, I have positted my claim, I am waiting for you to posit yours so we can compare their justifications. Not holding my breath though.
Consensus and verification.Do you use your senses and reasoning to determine whether or not there has been a consensus on the validity of senses and reasoning?
I think that when so many people disagree about something so vehemently, something odd is going on, and it's probably not that seventy percent of humans on Earth are brain-damaged.Nope, they are ‘suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.’ (Romans 1: 18-21).
Another major problem with spiritual knowledge and experiences - demonstrated by your failure, thus far, to explain the precise nature of how God has revealed himself to youYou never asked. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, and through His creation.
You can merely present your ontological arguments, have us read the prophecies come of other people's spiritual experiences from thousands of years ago, and hope that we arrive at a similar epiphany.Nope, I do not use ontological arguments, nor do I appeal to the spiritual experiences of others, I simply state that without God, proof of anything is impossible. Should be easy to refute, just tell us how proof of anything is possible without God.
I doubt your spiritual beliefs because, being non-transferable, there is no way for me to evaluate for myself whether they are true observations or the product of faulty senses or reasoning.I am not appealing to my spiritual beliefs, I am simply asking you to account for proof and knowledge according to YOUR worldview.
Properly done science can always be reduced to observationsPerhaps you can give me an example of science that has been reduced to observation, and tell me how you know that its findings are valid?
When you point at morality, I see a social construct.When you point at a social construct, I see arbitrary morality, and a worldview that says raping babies could be right.
suppose so, but that just makes my statement falsifiable, not false.Never said it was false, I said it was invalid, or ‘without foundation,’ and therefore meaningless.
Therefore certainty is impossible unless you remove the natural world and replace it with a set of axioms - such as the bases of logic and mathematics.Are you certain of that, if so, what axiom did you use to derive that conclusion? Also, how do you account for the laws of logic and mathematics according to your worldview?
> Do you use your senses and reasoning to determine whether or not there has been a consensus on the validity of senses and reasoning?
Yes, because it is impossible to communicate with others without using the senses, and impossible to understand what they say without using reasoning. I suppose my ability to communicate with and understand others cannot be taken for granted; there is a chance that I am severely psychotic and this discussion is taking place entirely in my imagination, or that the entire universe is in fact a fabrication of my mind, per metaphysical solipsism. However, in those cases I don't see that it really matters since I must just be arguing with myself.
> God has revealed Himself to us through His Word
Would this be the Bible? I know of no evidence that indicates that's anything other than a record composed (probably from earlier oral traditions) by various scribes/priests around 1000-500 BCE, some tracts written by a radical sect of Judaism in the 1st century, and other apocrypha of earthly origins. The book itself claims that it is the word of God, of course - but so do the Avesta, the Koran, etc.
> and through His creation.
I have no quarrel with deists. However, there's no evidence to back them up either.
> Should be easy to refute, just tell us how proof of anything is possible without God.
There's a discipline called "quantum logic" that successfully maps the principles of classical propositional logic (minus the distributive law, for easily understood reasons) as projections on a Hilbert space, which is an Euclidian space generalized to infinitely many dimensions. An "Euclidian space" means that it is a theoretical space in accord with various observations a Greek dude named Euclid once formulated by observing the geometry our very own world.
Is that what you were looking for? A way to account for logic that is grounded in the physical world?
> Perhaps you can give me an example of science that has been reduced to observation, and tell me how you know that its findings are valid?
The color of the sky due to a phenomenon known as the Tyndall effect (or Rayleigh scattering), which states that small molecules suspended in a gas, solution, or other colloid scatter shorter wavelengths of light (like blue) more than they do long wavelengths (like red.) An experiment that demonstrates this is to mix a little soap into a tank of water, then shine a beam of white light through it in a dark room; done properly, the sides of the tank will emit a slightly bluish light, while the end of the tank shines a reddish light. During the daytime, the direction in which sunlight reaches the earth is random and thus a large amount of visible scattering takes place, but at dawn and dusk sunlight is focused over the horizon and we see the unscattered light instead.
I know this piece of science is valid because my teacher repeated the experiment for us in 6th grade, and drew a diagram of the sun, the earth and a gigantic cosmic fishtank to illustrate the analogy.
> When you point at a social construct, I see arbitrary morality, and a worldview that says raping babies could be right.
Undoubtedly someone has raped babies in the past, and God, despite being omnipotent, did not intervene; He allowed those babies to be raped for a reason that is morally sufficient for Him. Does that not mean that God also views raping babies to be 'right' in certain situations?
I'd rather discuss morality in the "problem of evil" thread though.
(continuation of the above reply, it was too long for the comment field)
> Never said it was false, I said it was invalid, or ‘without foundation,’ and therefore meaningless.
If it's invalid, then why not demonstrate it as invalid by showing me a formal proof that is outside the domain of logic or mathematics? I would prefer a peer-reviewed source.
> Are you certain of that, if so, what axiom did you use to derive that conclusion?
A philosophical one, I suppose, stated by Socrates: "One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing."
In other words, as human beings are not omnipotent, it is impossible for us to formulate a theory that anticipates every eventuality and confounding factor - unless we create our own closed system in which such things do not intervene.
> Also, how do you account for the laws of logic and mathematics according to your worldview?
I mentioned one way of accounting for logic above.
As for mathematics, that seems pretty easy to derive from physical observations as well. If I have an apple and take another one, I now have two apples. If I measure the circumference of a circle and divide it by the diameter, I have an irrational number commonly known as pi. Mathematics can be, and was, built up from observational principles like these.
> Um, nope, I said, I have positted my claim, I am waiting for you to posit yours so we can compare their justifications. Not holding my breath though.
No, see, you once again seem unfamiliar with how an argument works. There's no "comparing" to be done. You need to back up your own claims, completely independent of what anyone else says.
And you haven't.
Now do so, or stop posting.
COME HERE FOR A FREE INTELLECTUAL WORKOUT AGAINST OTHER TROLLS LOOKING FOR A FREE INTELLECTUAL WORKOUT!!!! GANBATTE
why o why are there soooo many people who choose to be "anonymous".....um....maybe you don't know what your talking about?Or you do but a scared that you will be made fun of?
LET ME MAKE IT CLEAR....I AM NOT AFRAID TO SAY THAT I "BELIVE"
THAT THERE IS NO GOD!!! If we have been here for thousands of years..why can't we find SOLID PROOF that god is real?
How is there space...how is there room for space...how is life possible?...If there is a "Space"...then there has to be somthing else...right...i refuse to belive in a GOD...but i also refuse to belive that a buch of "gas" formed from nothing and blew up to create what we call "life"......there is not enough room in our heads to cumpute life...but we all know that
wheather we choose to belive or not...religin runs all of our lives...every war every dissagrement goes back to beliefs...how is it that we as a socity still conform to the government who themselves refuse admit one way or the other....but our money still says "in GOD we trust"....REALLY you trust in somthing that can't possibly be real....but millions upon millions belive in aliens....me personally i also belive in them. I think that they know how why when and where we came to be...hell we might even be a new breed of them....thats just it we don't know and we never will as long as we pretend that it's not a possibility...i'm not here to pass judgment...i just think that we atlest give it a chance....hell nobody belived in dinosours until they triped on one and "what the hell is that?"...So in conclusion i request that we take a good hard look deep inside of ourselves and ask...."why do we still go to a place called church for spiratul healing..when all it is is a business."
James WatsonIf there were really a God he wouldn't have created people like James Watson.
thousands of years ago, when people were starting to civilize and make permanent establishments, they saw natural phenomenon. Phenomenon such as an earthquake, tornado,hurricane,hail,an asteroid,and many other natural occurrences could influence a primative people into coming up with ideas to explain them, thusfore creating a religion. Look around the world, there are hundreds if not thousands of religions that exist. The religion you practice is influenced by the area you reside in, and the religious practices and customs are influenced by the natural wonders of a specific region. Therefore concluding that there is no god. The idea of god is different among everyone because of how they percieve god. God is in the mind of the beholder, yours to create and shape into your very own idea, unique from the next person. When you die in this life i believe there is nothing after. I think that death is like before you were born, possesing no concept of the natural world, of logic and reasoning, absolutely no perception whatsoever of anything. but thats just my opinion
No one's mind has changed about anything as a result of this thread.
You're right, but several individual minds have probably been changed.
hi five punctuation mistakes
Question:
What is the difference between these two statements?
"I do not believe that God exists"
and
"I believe that God does not exist"
If you knew for a fact that God exists, the first would apply but not the second?
1) cant prove God exists, cause it could all be random nothing ness that means nothing; and all could be controlled by chance.
2) cant prove he DOESNT exist, cause for all you know he is making sure everything happens, or at least, keeps things happening.
so...take whatever you want. since physics/etc breaks down at the moment of the big bang, i see God as the only choice for that, at least. or, who knows? in 100 years we may find another cause, opening up faster-than-light travel; and the big bang explained away.
or, whatever.
This thread needs moar null hypothesis.
"I believe, and if my belief has basis, the One in whom I believe surely knows this in the absence of my official declarations. The mind has fashioned for itself in history many different models of God, holding each in turn to be the one and only truth, but this is a mistake, for modeling means codifications, and a mystery codified ceases to be a mystery. The dogmas seem eternal only at the beginning of the stretching road of civilization. First they imagine God as the Angry Father, then as the Shepherd-Gardener, then as the Artist enamored of his Creation, therefore people had to play the respective roles of well-behaved children, obedient sheep, and finally that of enthralled audience. But it is infantile to think that God created in order that His creation bow and scrape from morning til night, in order that He be loved, in advance installments, for what will come Yonder, if Here happens not to be to one's liking, as though He were a virtuoso, and in exchange for repeated rounds of prayerful cheering prepared eternal encores to follow the terrestrial performance, in other words saving His best number for the falling of the mortal curtain. That theatrical version of Theodicy belongs to our dim and distant past."
"If God has omniscience, then He knows everything there is to know about me, and knew it moreover for a time immeasurably long, before I came forth out of oblivion. He knows also what He will decide regarding my--or your--fears and expectations, for He is no less perfectly informed about all His own future actions; otherwise He would not be omniscient. For Him no difference exists between the thought of a caveman and that of an intelligence which engineers will build a billion years from now. Nor do I see why the external circumstances of a profession of faith should make much difference to Him, or--for that matter--whether it is homage someone offers, or a grudge. We do not consider Him a manufacturer, who waits for approbation from His product, since history has brought us to the point where thought genuinely natural in no way differs from thought artificially induced, which means that there is no distinction whatever between natural and artificial; that now lies behind us. You must remember that we can create beings and mentalities of any kind. We could for example give rise to creatures that derive mystic ecstasy from existence, and eventually in their adorations directed at the Transcendental there would materialize a purpose a purpose characteristic of bygone prayer and worship. But this mass production of believers would be for us a pointless mockery. Remember, we do not beat our heads against the wall of any physical or inborn limitation to our desires, such walls we have torn down, and have stepped out into the realm of absolute creative freedom. Today a child can resurrect the dead, breathe life into the dust, into metal, destroy and kindle suns, for such technologies exist; the fact that not everyone has access to them is, as I think you will agree, unimportant from the theological point of view. Because the bounds of human agency, marked off with such precision in the Holy Book, have been attained unto and thereby violated, and the cruelty of the old restrictions is now replaced by the cruelty of their total absence. Yet we do not believe that the Creator hides His love from us behind the mask of both these alternative torments, putting us through the mill, as it were, in order to keep us guessing. Nor is it the Church's office to call both misfortunes--the bondage and the freedom--promissory notes, endorsed by revelation and to be paid, with interest, by the heavenly treasurer. The vision of heaven as a bank account and hell as a debtor's prison represents a momentary aberration in the history of the faith. Theodicy is not a course in sophistry to train defenders of the Good Lord, and faith doesn't mean telling people that everything will work out in the end. The Church changes, the faith changes, for both reside in history; one must therefore anticipate, and that is the task of our order."
"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible. Impossible to fix once and for all, there being no dogma a mind can latch onto with the certainty of permanence. We defended the Holy Writ for twenty-five centuries, using tactical retreats, circuitous interpretations of the text, until we were defeated. No longer do we have the bookkeeper's vision of the Transcendental, God is neither the Tyrant, nor the Shepherd, nor the Artist, nor the Policeman, nor the Head Accountant of Existence. Belief in God has had to cast off every selfish motive, if only by virtue of the fact that it will never--not anywhere--be rewarded. If God were to prove capable of acting contrary to logic and reason, that would be a sad surprise indeed. Was it not He--for who else?--that gave us these logical forms of thought, without which we would know nothing? How then can we accept the notion that an act of faith requires the surrender of the logical mind? Why give us first the faculty of reason, only to do it violence by setting contradictions in its path?"
"In order to mystify and make obscure? To lead us first to the conclusion that there is nothing Later On, then pull heaven out of a hat like some common magician? We hardly think so. Which is why we ask no favors of God in consideration of the faith we hold, and present Him with no demands, for we are finished and done with that theodicy based on the model of commercial transactions and payment in kind; I shall give thee being, thou shalt serve and praise me."
"Put no more questions to me then, but give some thought into what a faith like mine must mean. If someone believes for certain reasons and on certain grounds, his faith loses its full sovereignty; that two and two equal four I know right well and therefore need not have faith in it. But of God I know nothing, and therefore can only have faith. What does this faith give me? By the ancient reckoning, not a blessed thing. No longer is it the anodyne for the dread of extinction, no longer the heavenly courtier lobbying for salvation and against damnation. It does not allay the mind, tormented by the contradictions of existence; it does not smooth out those edges; I tell you--it is worthless! Which means it serves no end. We cannot even declare that this is the reason we believe, because such faith reduces to absurdity; he who would speak thus is in effect claiming to know the difference--permanently--between the absurd and the not absurd, and has himself chosen the absurd because, according to him, that is the side on which God stands. We do not argue thus. Our act of faith is neither supplicating nor thankful, neither humble nor defiant, it simply is, and there is nothing more that can be said about it."
Yes.
No.
Yes.
Mu
wat
One afternoon a student said "Roshi, I don't really understand what's going on. I mean, we sit in zazen and we gassho to each other and everything, and Felicia got enlightened when the bottom fell out of her water-bucket, and Todd got enlightened when you popped him one with your staff, and people work on koans and get enlightened, but I've been doing this for two years now, and the koans don't make any sense, and I don't feel enlightened at all! Can you just tell me what's going on?"
"Well you see," Roshi replied, "for most people, and especially for most educated people like you and I, what we perceive and experience is heavily mediated, through language and concepts that are deeply ingrained in our ways of thinking and feeling. Our objective here is to induce in ourselves and in each other a psychological state that involves the unmediated experience of the world, because we believe that that state has certain desirable properties. It's impossible in general to reach that state through any particular form or method, since forms and methods are themselves examples of the mediators that we are trying to avoid. So we employ a variety of ad hoc means, some linguistic like koans and some non-linguistic like zazen, in hopes that for any given student one or more of our methods will, in whatever way, engender the condition of non-mediated experience that is our goal. And since even thinking in terms of mediators and goals tends to reinforce our undesirable dependency on concepts, we actively discourage exactly this kind of analytical discourse."
And the student was enlightened.
dont worry, when we die, one of us is going to be VERY dissapointed
>>397
FALSE. Please submit the evidence you have of the continuance of consciousness after death. You have to be CONSCIOUS in order to be DISAPPOINTED.
>>398
I've submitted the evidence online. Simply click on my name.
yaaaay~ (・∀・)