The Concept of God

HughFreakingDillon

tbergs said:
Well, if you believe the bible, that happened about 2000 years ago, but my past lives' memories escape me and I don't know how accurate the written accounts are. Can't dispute it either way, but that's part of the challenge. You either have the faith or you don't. I have faith of a higher power, but question its historical identity and origin.

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

pjsoul said:
I think all the other terrible things that happen to people and animals is part of an argument against God. The things that aren't atrocities determined by free will. Drought, famine, horrible disease, devastating natural disasters, human nature ... Seriously, I don't understand how anyone who actually believes in God doesn't hate his guts. 

tbergs said:
I'll go back to this argument again. For the most part parents have children that they want to be decent human beings, but it doesn't always happen because they only have the ability to create life. Why can't the same be true of a god? They create life, but can't dictate how that life is lived or how it acts because we are born with our own thoughts and minds.

As I've said, I don't specifically believe in god, but a higher being, and I don't blame it for the shitty actions of humans. That's on us to figure out

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

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well, then why did he kill everyone except noah and all the animals that one time? i thought he was a live and let live type of deity. 

tbergs said:

I'm not a purveyor of the biblical story because I don't believe in any religion's god narrative; just that there is a higher being.

If we're taking about the Noah story, well we'd already been around for thousands of years, much longer than it has been since the proclaimed event in historical terms, so whose to say it can't happen again if that's a true story. Or we all go the way of the dinosaur. Either way I won't be there in my current incarnation so none of this will matter in the end. Life is infinite in some form or another and nothing we do will change that.

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

pjsoul said:
I think all the other terrible things that happen to people and animals is part of an argument against God. The things that aren't atrocities determined by free will. Drought, famine, horrible disease, devastating natural disasters, human nature ... Seriously, I don't understand how anyone who actually believes in God doesn't hate his guts. 

tbergs said:
I'll go back to this argument again. For the most part parents have children that they want to be decent human beings, but it doesn't always happen because they only have the ability to create life. Why can't the same be true of a god? They create life, but can't dictate how that life is lived or how it acts because we are born with our own thoughts and minds.

As I've said, I don't specifically believe in god, but a higher being, and I don't blame it for the shitty actions of humans. That's on us to figure out

pjsoul said:

True. Also, God or any random higher being one might imagine can blow jelly beans out of volcanoes and make it rain trumpets, but can't thread a golden needle with the hair of all mankind. In other words, literally anything can be said about God/a higher being - I don't see how any statement is more valid than another when it is all completely made up out of thin air. 

ponytd

I believe in God. I grew up in the church (Church of Christ actually) and went to a Church of Christ school. Like so many others, I grew up believing in God because my parents did and I went to church. As I've grown up though, I've questioned a lot. Mostly to myself, but to others also. I don't have the same viewpoints as I did when I was younger. But I I don't really attend church that regularly anymore though. I have nothing against church, but I do question religion like PJ_Soul said. Growing up you're told you have to go to church every week. I'm fine with that, but I don't think God is going to condemn you to hell because you don't go every single time. I feel like man has tarnished God with his/her self-righteous attitude and with all the different religions that are out there, and basically people just picked and choose what they feel is best for them and created all these different religions. I feel like that is one of the biggest reasons why people have a problem with religion. And I totally get it. I could be wrong there, but from some I've heard from that is a huge reason.

p.s. if I don't respond it's just because I'm leaving work and got plans tonight and then playing golf tomorrow. not because I'm scared of any questions or discussions lol

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

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watching the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode "The Genesis Tub" put alot of this in perspective. 

tbergs said:

Whatever works for you. Doesn't matter to me whether someone believes or thinks it's all bullshit. I was Lutheran, then I was atheist and now I'm more of a higher being type believer. Imagine if all digital media was destroyed and lost regarding some of the major events that have happened in the last 100 years and then fast forward 2000 years from now and all you have are some written accounts that vary from a Fox News to a CNN perspective. Where's the middle ground? Hard to believe anything you can't touch, taste, hear, smell or see.

Anyway, I'm going to go eat some Jelly Bean and wait for the next volcano explosion  

HughFreakingDillon

hescalleddyer said:

I'm reminded of the scene in Devil's Advocate where John (Al Pacino) is going off about God to Kevin (Keanu Reeves)...

Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER! 

HughFreakingDillon

I'm somewhere in the middle between atheist and agnostic. it depends on the day, really. usually lean atheist, but then if I have time to sit and think too much about how fucking big the universe is and how it got created and how and why and all that, I can't help but think there was some sort of manufacturer to all of this. 

but the christian god I was taught about as a kid? NOPE. 

HughFreakingDillon

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

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Are you saying religion is at the root of these crimes?

gobeavers said:

It's not the root, because it's no longer the religion at that point (if this question was directed at me. Quotes seem extra messy today)

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

I'm somewhere in the middle between atheist and agnostic. it depends on the day, really. usually lean atheist, but then if I have time to sit and think too much about how fucking big the universe is and how it got created and how and why and all that, I can't help but think there was some sort of manufacturer to all of this. 

but the christian god I was taught about as a kid? NOPE. 

pjsoul said:

So who manufactured the manufacturer? 

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

I'm somewhere in the middle between atheist and agnostic. it depends on the day, really. usually lean atheist, but then if I have time to sit and think too much about how fucking big the universe is and how it got created and how and why and all that, I can't help but think there was some sort of manufacturer to all of this. 

but the christian god I was taught about as a kid? NOPE. 

pjsoul said:

So who manufactured the manufacturer? 

the basic idea behind agnosticism is "I have no fucking clue". 

HughFreakingDillon

thirty bills unpaid said:

Well, if I didn't know beforehand, I guess this is where we disagree.

The sleeper cells in Europe and the US have been inspired by faith. In this most recent incident, an English citizen just blew up his neighbours- his fellow countrymen- because of his religious beliefs (the only thing separating him from his soft targets). If the bomber had been from Afghanistan or Iraq and had navigated his way into the country to attack the parliamentary building... I'd be there with you.

ISIS typically takes the credit for these sensational events, but ISIS has nothing to do with many of them other than share a common ideology and vision.

HughFreakingDillon

go beavers said:

I'm probably just making a comment on religious philosophy. Isis isn't Islamic, even if they claim they are. A parent who lets their kid die based on Christianity and thinking God will heal them also isn't Christian. Etc...

HughFreakingDillon

and around and around we go: yes,it is faith-based. what these fuckers believe is true islam. 

let me say this: take the worst, most violent and terrible portions of the bible, you know, the ones they don't preach about in church because they aren't to be taken literally, not now anyway, and create a faction, let's call it CHRISIS, and have them perpetrating these atrocities across the globe. 

Do you not think that peaceful, loving, modern Christians would be telling you that what CHRISIS is, is not true Christianity? And you'd have Christian haters out there calling them Christian terrorists. It would be the same damn thing. Cue the "no christian would ever do that" response. 

Bomb the fuck out of Christian nations for decades, killing thousands and thousands of innocent civilians and calling it collateral damage and we'll see about that. 

HughFreakingDillon

pjsoul said:

That is just one of the things I don't get about some religious folks (not you... or mostly not you. I think agnosticism is almost as odd as straight up religion, in a way). It seems that many religious people feel that the existence of the universe is proof of God, because they think something with a purpose, apparently, had to have created the universe. Even if they are willing to acknowledge the big bang theory, they feel that God had to have initiated the big bang at the very least, because something can't appear out of nothing.... I just don't understand why they think God had to have at least initiated the universe, but don't seem to consider who initiated God. And if they think nobody had to - that God had no beginning and comes from infinite roots - then why wouldn't that same idea be just as easily applicable to the universe? Doesn't make any sense. I just don't understand why people humour the idea of God at all, considering that none of it makes any sense. There is no rhyme or reason behind the belief in the existence of God, or in agnosticism either, IMO. But anyway, it's not like I think I'm going to recruit any Atheists here, lol. I'm just saying!  

HughFreakingDillon

thirty bills unpaid said:

How about no religion at all?

How about people figure out there is no omnipresent deity floating around somewhere, there is no afterlife, and learn to appreciate this life and how valuable it is for everyone getting an opportunity at it?

pjsoul said:

I personally don't think God or an an omnipresent deity or any higher power and the afterlife have anything to do with each other. I'm an Atheist, but I have no reason to completely discount some kind of afterlife simply because of the scientific fact that energy doesn't die. Given how little we know about consciousness, I am at least somewhat open to the idea that consciousness and energy could somehow be tied together, and we just don't know the science of it (yet). I very seriously doubt that there is an afterlife, but that is a completely separate topic from the existence of God for me, and not one that has anything to do with faith. 

HughFreakingDillon

thirty bills unpaid said:
We decompose and make good soil for trees and stuff. We do not enter another dimension.

HughFreakingDillon

why would my personal philophy of saying "I don't know" be odd? You don't know. nobody does. theists purport to "know". my brother says he has a fucking relationship with god, but he can't articulate what that means, but somehow it's my fault for not being enlightened enough. so does his wife and their son. proving the existence or nonexistence of god is impossible. just like I can't prove the sun has a gooey nougat centre. 

again, I don't believe in the christian god. I find that too implausible. not to mention fucked up. But I can't say for sure if there was some type of energy out there that did it all, whether it was by design or some crazy natural occurence, or we're all living in some fucking simulated video game. 

as you said, of course it makes no sense. none of it does to our puny brains. a friend of mine in elementary school dared me to ask his mom how god got there. So I did. She said "he's always been there". I followed up with "but he must have arrived at some point", and she literally said the exact same thing again; "he's always been there". My friend was laughing. I felt like i was talking to a non-thinking robot, just spewing out the answer it was programmed to give. 

that was literally the beginning of my journey away from organized religion. 

HughFreakingDillon

HughFreakingDillon said:

thirty bills unpaid said:
We decompose and make good soil for trees and stuff. We do not enter another dimension.

pjsoul said:

I know we decompose, but I don't understand how anyone can confidently say that there is no afterlife, since the possibility, however remote, of there being a scientific explanation for it does technically exist, theoretically. I'm only willing to write off things that I think are literally ludicrous and based on absolutely nothing, like the existence of God. But I won't completely write off possibilities if there is even a tiny sliver of a scientific basis for them, and the fact that energy has been proven to be eternal is that sliver when it comes to an afterlife (until they prove that 100% of the energy in a living being goes to the process of decomposition, anyway, and that no energy whatsoever exits the body after death) .... But you're probably right. I would like proof of there being no afterlife though. I would happily accept such proof. 

HughFreakingDillon

ok, so we're splitting hairs here, but what you are describing as an afterlife is what some would call there being a god (like all our spirits, one energy, one with the universe, etc, is what some define as god). being agnostic isn't defined as not believing or not knowing if there is a christian or buddhist god, but just knowing that we don't know what, if, comes after we die.