The Concept of God

PS - the above isn't meant to come off as antagonistic.  I just find both rings of fire to be ridiculous in ways.  Not in themselves, but in how those views are sometimes given, as well as received.

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

FoxyRedLa said:

I'm not sure I want to enter this rabbit hole.

What exactly is the discussion here. I feel it's out of my league. The concept of God is the discussion? Either you believe or you dont, right? The discussion just keeps going around and around because one side fights they believe and the other fights they dont.....

It's not out of your league if you took the time post your thoughts. 
AMT is not a big and scary place.  Unless you get banned of course.
Your thoughts are always welcome here.

Honestly, quite a bit here, the comments are way over my head. You guys discuss stuff that I have not even thought about so I can rarely comment.

I just feel God is made more complex than intended. He is commonly referred to as He. I do believe in God. I do believe He is the only God. I do pray. I do read to my kids about God's teachings. I do not go to church at this time. I do believe in the Holy Trinity. I do believe in Catholic guilt

I understand thearguments about religion or organized religion and agendas. But the concept of God the direction you guys are going I don't understand. It's out of my league because I'm a believer. I don't sit around and think of ways He is not.

FoxyRedLa said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

FoxyRedLa said:

I'm not sure I want to enter this rabbit hole.

What exactly is the discussion here. I feel it's out of my league. The concept of God is the discussion? Either you believe or you dont, right? The discussion just keeps going around and around because one side fights they believe and the other fights they dont.....

It's not out of your league if you took the time post your thoughts. 
AMT is not a big and scary place.  Unless you get banned of course.
Your thoughts are always welcome here.

Honestly, quite a bit here, the comments are way over my head. You guys discuss stuff that I have not even thought about so I can rarely comment.

I just feel God is made more complex than intended. He is commonly referred to as He. I do believe in God. I do believe He is the only God. I do pray. I do read to my kids about God's teachings. I do not go to church at this time. I do believe in the Holy Trinity. I do believe in Catholic guilt

I understand thearguments about religion or organized religion and agendas. But the concept of God the direction you guys are going I don't understand. It's out of my league because I'm a believer. I don't sit around and think of ways He is not.

Don't you think it is a good idea to question blind faith?

I used to believe as well. I was taught at a very young age about God. I bought the story. Why wouldn't I? I hated the idea of dying and if an afterlife was promised... I was all in!

Problems arose for me when nobody could even remotely answer some logistical questions I had: where is God and where is Heaven were two natural ones.

When I began to detach, I experienced guilt and other emotions I couldn't quite explain, but the clouds began to clear. And as the clouds began to clear, I began to understand what religion had done to me.

The brain is a powerful thing. Anorexic girls can stare in the mirror and think they are disgustingly fat, yet everyone else sees skin and bones. The mind will believe what it wants to believe and young people are exceptionally impressionable. I was brainwashed into believing something that simply cannot exist. 

It still lurks in me somewhat. There is a tinge of guilt creeping within me as I attempt to encourage you to question your faith. I consciously block it though- knowing at is the residual effect of the strong brainwashing effort that seized me when I was younger.

My my wish is for people to reconcile our fortunate existence with life and death on this planet. We will all come and go. We are all in this together. We need to try and treat everyone with that in mind. In my opinion, organized religions have had a negative effect on my wishes.

rgambs said:

FoxyRedLa said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

FoxyRedLa said:

I'm not sure I want to enter this rabbit hole.

What exactly is the discussion here. I feel it's out of my league. The concept of God is the discussion? Either you believe or you dont, right? The discussion just keeps going around and around because one side fights they believe and the other fights they dont.....

It's not out of your league if you took the time post your thoughts. 
AMT is not a big and scary place.  Unless you get banned of course.
Your thoughts are always welcome here.

Honestly, quite a bit here, the comments are way over my head. You guys discuss stuff that I have not even thought about so I can rarely comment.

I just feel God is made more complex than intended. He is commonly referred to as He. I do believe in God. I do believe He is the only God. I do pray. I do read to my kids about God's teachings. I do not go to church at this time. I do believe in the Holy Trinity. I do believe in Catholic guilt

I understand thearguments about religion or organized religion and agendas. But the concept of God the direction you guys are going I don't understand. It's out of my league because I'm a believer. I don't sit around and think of ways He is not.

It started for me by thinking of ways he is not.
My first thought was that there was no way a god as powerful as the Bible claims him to be could be so vain and needy.
Second thought was that no being of any decency would torture and burn people at all, let alone for inane reasons like making jokes.

The rest follows from there.  I seriously doubt that you are literally unable to follow a conversation on the nature of God, it seems more likely to me that you are uncomfortable engaging that line of thought.

I'm going to work backwards. I agree I am not literally unable to follow this discussion nor do I feel uncomfortable. I just feel when discussions get going and people don't agree words get ugly. 

I don't care that people don't believe. That doesn't make me uncomfortable. I also don't mind others discussing He doesn't exist. Also doesn't make me uncomfortable. 

I was not referring to this thread this discussion being out of my league - more those that mostly congregate here. You're all very experienced and educated and often I skim because there are so many words used I often can't translate.


I have not considered Him to be vain or needy. I will reflect on that.

As far as burning in any of the 10 levels of hell, there are only 2 unforgivable sins. And jokes certainly are not in that burning category. 

Hell I don't know if I believe. I have a hard time processing Lucifer punishing anyone for being evil.

I do hear and agree with the organized and agenda religion comments. I want to learn about God and his work I don't want to be preached at or ya know in a cult. 

The above shower story is hilarious! 

I don't believe there is a god.
Could there be a God? I guess, but it definitely is not the being that is portrayed in most religions. In such a vast universe humans are merely an invisible spec in terms of time and space.

Scientists estimate there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe, some with suns that have died billions of years ago and god is watching everything we do? God is going to invite all the living beings he has ever created up to the afterlife (if you're good enough) when he already granted us a life in the universe? I just don't buy it.

It's incredibly complicated in the details of the execution, but the concept is simple.
Measure a small volume (x) of something (y) in easily quantifiable scale, and then measure x in a larger but still quantifiable scale, multiply by y, and continue the process into wild realms of estimation.

HughFreakingDillon said:

rgambs said:

It's incredibly complicated in the details of the execution, but the concept is simple.
Measure a small volume (x) of something (y) in easily quantifiable scale, and then measure x in a larger but still quantifiable scale, multiply by y, and continue the process into wild realms of estimation.

yes, I get that, I just don't understand how we can conceive what the observable universe is. I mean, it's so fucking big, how in the world can we make an accurate assessment? if you are basing your first calculation on an estimate, that in turn means your 100th cacluation could be not even close to right. 

either way, it's mind boggling. just whenever I read something that says "the edge of the universe" or "it is ever-expanding". What? expanding into what? if it's expanding, there's something there for it to expand into....right? if you got the edge of the universe, would it be like bumping into a wall, or looking through a window?

I need some weed for this conversation.

I often wonder if the edge of the universe - if there is an edge - is like a Pac-Man board?  You run off the right edge, you end up back on the left edge and vice-versa.