I agree, and I consider myself a strong agnostic. For all we know, we could be cells floating inside a larger body.
I cannot conceive of any reason to beleive in any god, much less a specific god like YHWH. I'm sorry, but every explination provided thus far has been terribly irrational, in my opinion.
What if god doesn't want you to beleive in her? What if those who do get punished while those who don't get rewarded?
Why does your god not have to have an origin but the universe does? That seems very convenient. The "origin" of the universe is just another transition.
I really can't comprehend it. I live in the universe, in 4 dimensions. It is hard for me to fathom what happens outside of this universe. Having an origin requires time. God lives (exists, whatever) outside of time. If you are talking about Big Bang/Big Crunch cycles, that doesn't match observations. The universe is growing at a positive accelerating rate. At any point in a Big Bang/Big Crunch cycle using known physical laws, the growth of the universe would be accelerating in the negative direction. (Fastest expansion at the Big Bang. Fastest contraction at the Big Crunch.)
If you can perform a miracle like getting Rafer Alston to hit 7 three pointers in a game I might have to take you up on it.
I don't know all the scientifics involved, but I think the outside is also the inside. You can't have one without the other. I also don't think anything truly has an real origin. If it is possible for a god then it is possible for the universe and/or universes. Maybe they are the same.
There is no basis for this claim other than one's say so. If the universe needed no creation then there it isn't any more difficult to say the universe needed no creation.
I found this thread interesting as I have for a while been having my own existentialist crisis. I think the question of God is far more complex then we first realize. I've briefly read through what everyone is saying so I'll do my best and not repeat what has been said. First, I think its important I state what I am and why I am what I am. I am an agnostic. Now there are two (according to my reading) kinds of agnostics, there are those who are searching for whether God exists or not and then those who do not believe we can know whether God exists. I like to think I dont know but its a worthy question to search for in life. Next, this to me is important and is pretty obvious but hasn't been stated directly yet (I dont think), most people are their parent's religion and for those in the words of Joseph Campbell, "If you ever want to understand religion go study someone elses." IE know your bias. As for the issue of the origin of the world. The analogy I like to think of is a number line. Does a number line begin? Does it end? No it does not. Thus why does it have to be that the universe begins and ends? We base reality on our experiences and in our life it seems things live and die, begin and end. But does this have to be the case? Plus if you can say you live forever in heaven why can't you just say things exist forever. As for Pascal's Wager, I've always thought it was a clever idea simply because it implies being deceitful to yourself. Essentially Pascal is saying its best to believe in God b/c you fall into one of four situations. A.) God exists and you believe and you get a chance of getting into heaven B.) God exists and you dont believe thereby you aren't getting into heaven C.) God doesnt exist and you believe he does and thus you dont get into heaven b/c it doesnt exist D.) God doesnt exist and you dont believe anywayz so your big prize you just die. Pascal essentially says if you were to bet the only one that makes sense is choice a.) b/c its the only one that gives you a chance of getting into heaven. The deceit is that you are lying to yourself about what you believe. I would think God would respect you more if you searched for meaning as to what you believe and came to realize ,even if it was erroneous, that He doesn't exist than to say I dont think God exists but I'll believe in him just so I can go to heaven. Worse to me, you believe what you believe, its not like you have choice (a topic which needs to be examined further) as to what you believe. You may say you have a choice as to what you do but what you believe, its just based on the facts or reality you have at hand. Another aspect that got to me in this discussion is how everyone kept mentioning right and wrong, good and bad. These are very difficult concepts to truely understand. What is good for one is bad for another. One piece of bread and two people. One eats it and survives then the other dies. If I eat it great for me sucks for you. (By the way I understand the issue is more complex then who lives and dies) I am not saying things are relative b/c to say things are relative is an absolute statement ie contradiction, but to understand good and bad is not an easy task. I took a class on what is evil and at the end of class we came to the conclusion that we just didn't know. I also wanted to mention something about logic. All of these arguments for or against God and why we should believe or not believe in Him are based on logic. But is our logic perfect? A mathematician, Kurt Godel, proved that mathematics was not complete, ie the incompleteness theorem. This essentially proved that there are some things we know true but can't prove, ie the Liar paradox. Richard Dawkins wrote a book called the God Delusion. While i dont argee completely with his book he mentioned something at the end thats worth stating with regard to what we know. When we examine light, we only see certain kinds of lights. Does that mean the lights we see are the only kinds of light? No, we know this for a fact. Essentially he was trying to convey our minds have a capacity. We can only know soo much. There could be some things our mind simply cannot grasp (I think of my cat and how if I put a string under a carpet and pull the cat doesnt realize the string i'm pulling on the opposite side is the same string that he is seeing going under the carpet). Oh on Dawkins I just have to say this for those that keep saying evolution is wrong, that things dont just happen by chance. Evolutions isn't about chance, its about adaptation. We dont just randomly evolve to be intelilgent beings, its was advantageous for us to evolve to have intelligent. Being smarter then the guy next to you meant you got to eat more, live better, etc. When thinking about God and the standard explanation as to what he is (all powerful all knowing etc etc) its difficult to believe b/c of the contradictions associated with it. If God is all powerful then he can create a rock he can't lift. But if he can't lift that rock he is not all powerful and if he can lift the rock he can't create one he can't lift. (ie its impossible to be all powerful). This is just one of a number of faulty logic behind God and the Bible (haven't researched much in other fields yet) But if God doesnt exist then morals and values are created under the basis of what? Its just a contract so we dont go around killing one another for food? I dont like this idea of reality either. Its like what are we doing just buying time before we die? It can be a lil depressing, b/c then life seems to just be about hedonistic pleasures (by the way ever notice how ppl who say they want to go to heaven to enjoy the pleasantries of it and not burn in hell are nothing more then hedonists?). One last point b/c I rambled far more then I thought I would. Whether an atheist or a fundamentalist I think its important that you keep a grain of doubt always in your mind as to what you believe. Like I said we all can only see soo much. We dont know everything and most things can't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Believing you are absolutely right carrries tremendous problems. If I believe I am thoroughly and completely right I stop doubting, I start just doing, I stop thinking. Thus if someone gives me a good reason to stop I just think no God told me to do this so i will. Many tragedies throughout our times have been committed under this mentality (think 9 11 though i'm sure there is more to it then even this...watch Paradise Now if you want a good visual representation of it). I like to think of Socrates on this who said he didn't know what the greatest virtue was but the best thing he could say was ascertaining knowledge.
one loses time, energy, money? Well God wouldnt say He wasted His time on you when He gave you life. Man show respect for He who believes in you, even if you do not believe in Him.
yo, brother, its actually much much simpler than all that. Science does not apply to God. No man can ever comprehend Him. Rationalizing can only go so far because our minds are extremely limited. We should not be so arrogant to disbelieve simply because we do not understand. God is there for everyone, if they would just ask for His help. We should all understand our place and be humble. Why we try so hard to disprove Him is beyond me. He gave everyone who ever lived the chance to be in Heaven. All we need to do is do well, suffer, and sacrifice for a lifetime. Afterwards eternal peace and happiness awaits. I give you my word as a man of integrity and honor, that God exists, and loves us all more than we can ever know.
Ok this is kinda off topic. I was watching Dogma the other night (which fyi, I think is a complete waste of a movie), and in the end.. they show God as a Spoiler woman (don't wanna ruin in just in case). Do this offend Christians? I am not a Christian so I was just wondering.
It doesn't offend me. I think that God appears to you in the form that you recieve Him /Her best. I also believe that God is everywhere and in everybody so I think that God come to you in the best way for you to relate. That said I do believe in God simply because I choose too. I feel the need to have faith in something stronger than man because man is so flawed and I think that believing in God give me hope in something better. I also think that it's not possible to understand God and so I don't look at it from that standpoint. I guess I always looked at God from the perspective of being a known unknown. I know there's a concept of God but the only to find out if he's real is to die and find out. I'll also say that I'd rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be wrong. I think that since God truly knows me better than I know myself He'll understand my reasoning for that also and forgive me. I do tend to question my faith but at the end of the day I can say that God's never let me down and so I choose to believe in him because I think he beleives in me.
It's a comedy movie, a Kevin Smith comedy movie. Most people I talk to also said Alanis was a great choice btw, but most of them aren't bible thumping Christian types, they are more casual about it.
ok mr. smug sarcasm, to answer your previous question, nobody created "the gods", God (only one) has always been and always will be. Yes I know you dont comprehend that, nor do I, as we cannot in this life. Now, as for your remark about my post, let me put it to you this way: so many people expain away the origins of life and earth and so on scientifically, and say there is no God because it isnt rational. They expalin the where (earth, Milky Way, etc), the who (humans, animals, etc), the when (billions of years ago this and millions of years ago that), the how (Big Bang Theory, evolution, etc), BUT THEY DONT EXPLAIN WHY!!!!!! How can a responsible person of right mind say what, where, when, how, but not why? The most important question of all and they say there is no "why". To say that everything just "is" without completing the 5 (what, where, when, how, why, ask any journalist, they will tell you these 5 questions must be answered to have a valid story) is ridiculous.
