Question The Existence of God

Mommatis said:
It makes me sad to think we are of no more consequence to anything larger than ourselves in this whole ginormous universe.

See think about it. Isn't it nicer knowing there is a larger than the world entity out there that cares for you and yours than to live life for the sake of life alone.
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It would perhaps be nice believing in something like that, but I just can't.
And we are of consequence to something larger than ourselves, namely each other. Angel said something about that in an Angel episode, I can't remember the exact words, but sometjing like "if this is all there is, then doing kind things for each other is the most important thing in the world". I really like that, and even though I don't think it was Joss' words, I think it reflects his atheistic but still very humanistic view of the world.
 
It's easy to think of a god as being a nice thing, but only if you somehow block out all the possible negatives.

Take the Bible, as a particularly obvious example. New Testament God is a puppydog. He's a sweetheart. But he's supposed to be the same God as Old Testament God, who did horrible things on apparently crazy ass whims, even to his own Israelites.

Same guy, right? Was he having a few off centuries until then, or what? Has the all-powerful omniscient creator changed his mind again, or has he just mellowed out with age?

It's all part of the same package. If you're only believing in the nice cuddly stuff, you're cherry picking. Which is a necessity with any old religion, because contradictions and anachronisms inevitably creep in over time, so you have to. There's no way you can read the Bible and consider it a useable manual for a modern lifestyle, you have to project your own interpretation on it.

I'm just saying. For the sake of this conversation, the possibility should be considered that the god in question is not a kindly benevolent santa claus.
 
S
Selig
Maybe one was Enki and the other Enlil?
Bob said:
Blondie Bear : Well, if the atheist is wrong, there's Hell to deal with. If the Christian is wrong, they'll never actually realize it (being dead and all).

I dont think its a sin to not believe in god... if it is then its better to believe in god and find out he doesnt exist, cuz as you said Bear, there's hell to pay for 🙂
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This is only true if you think that fear is a logical basis for devotion.
 
^ Which is what most religions with the Heaven/Hell dichotomy are really built on. That and feeling superior to other people.
 
Jill_Valentine said:
This is a common perception, and an immensely frustrating one. Agnosticism, perhaps, but not atheism.
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Gotta disagree with the "agnosticism is laziness" part. Even though I'm not an agnostic (and couldn't see me living as one) I do admire that stance, as, after all, agnosticism is the only scientifically sound way of dealing with the "God question". (The fact that I like to tease agnostics about how they cope with the solipsist dilemma is another topic, though. 😉 ) I can see no laziness about that, unless you'd say science in general is all about laziness... 🙂

A true atheist has the same kind of blind (quasi-)religious faith in an empirically unproven hypothesis that the classic "believer" has. And if God comes to him to say He/She/It exists, the atheist better be ready to say "no you don't" (if he plans to do otherwise, he's an agnostic at heart 😀 ).
 
L
Lindsey McDonald
[No message]
I haven't read all the replies to this thread, because I'm trying to watch TV at the same time!

Going back to the Heaven/Hell part of the debate, I believe that if there IS a god then if you live your life in the "right" way (do unto others as you would do unto yourself, helping people, being morally good etc) then you will get your "reward" at the end of it. If you believe in god but "sin" and are unrepentant, it doesn't matter how strong your belief is, you're not going to go to heaven.

On that basis, I think it's better to be a "good" atheist and find out there is a god, than to be a "good" believer and find out there is no god.
 
InsaneMystic said:
Gotta disagree with the "agnosticism is laziness" part.
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Okay, I'd like to clarify this a little bit.

I can understand an agnostic being accused of apathy sooner than I can understand an atheist being accused of the same. I didn't mean to imply that agnosticism is just the default philosophy, and I'm sorry if I did. I don't think agnosticism is a product of a kind of philosophical laziness, I really don't, I just find it easier to understand somebody perceiving it as such.

A true atheist has the same kind of blind (quasi-)religious faith in an empirically unproven hypothesis that the classic "believer" has. And if God comes to him to say He/She/It exists, the atheist better be ready to say "no you don't" (if he plans to do otherwise, he's an agnostic at heart 😀 ).
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Hang on, no. I'd like to dispute this.

Like the saying goes: atheism is a religion the same way that bald is a hair colour. An agnostic might say that the God question cannot be proved, or that it is of no consequence. An atheist thinks it's absurd to even ask the question; as absurd as it would be to ask the question of Russell's Teapot. There is not enough grounds, in their minds, to weigh the issue in the first place.

Of course an atheist would have to acknowledge a god if it made itself apparent, the same as a scientist would discard evolution if offered better evidence for something else. That's the scientific method, it's only reasonable. However, the chances of that happening, in the atheist's view, are so slight as to be discountable - about the same as seeing gravity disproven. So it amounts to the same thing.

Put it this way - god would have to be right here in my living room having a cup of tea or something for me to have a sudden change of heart. I mean, I'm an atheist, I'm not insane. Atheism can be considered a very, very, very strict agnosticism in that sense. But for the purposes of clarity, I describe myself as an atheist. People better understand where I'm coming from when I use that term specifically.

Uh, Dawkins explains that a lot better than I have, but I'm reluctant to cite him, because then people just think you're reeling something off from a book.... 😛
 
Jill_Valentine said:
I can understand an agnostic being accused of apathy sooner than I can understand an atheist being accused of the same. I didn't mean to imply that agnosticism is just the default philosophy, and I'm sorry if I did. I don't think agnosticism is a product of a kind of philosophical laziness, I really don't, I just find it easier to understand somebody perceiving it as such.
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Mh, given their growth in numbers at least over here in Western Europe, indeed tending towards the "default" nowadays, it doesn't take much philosophical effort to proclaim yourself an Atheist... so "follower's laziness" is something I'd more easily associate with Atheism than with agnosticism (which is the more "exotic" stance to take).

Don't take this as accusing you, personally, of such laziness. It's just that I've seen enough happy "Atheists" that would indubitably have been happy "Catholics" if they had been born a couple of centuries earlier. 😉


Jill_Valentine said:
An atheist thinks it's absurd to even ask the question; as absurd as it would be to ask the question of Russell's Teapot. There is not enough grounds, in their minds, to weigh the issue in the first place.
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But it's just as absurd in the eyes for a true believer to start doubting the existence of God... and the believer has neither less nor more convincing arguments on his/her side than the Atheist. After all, objective proof cannot be had in the human system of reference, for anything (I did mention solipsism before, didn't I?)


Jill_Valentine said:
Of course an atheist would have to acknowledge a god if it made itself apparent, the same as a scientist would discard evolution if offered better evidence for something else. That's the scientific method, it's only reasonable.
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Bad analogy. The scientist believes in evolution because he has a host of empirical evidence at hand to make that theory probable (indeed, in the case of evolution, probable enough to border on certainty). The Atheist has no such evidence to uphold his/her belief that God doesn't exist, even less than the "believer" who can usually at least point to some kind of holy scripture as "proof" (though that one, of course, isn't any kind of objective proof either).


Jill_Valentine said:
Uh, Dawkins explains that a lot better than I have, but I'm reluctant to cite him, because then people just think you're reeling something off from a book.... 😛
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Ugh. Dawkins. A rabid enough preacher of "scientistic Atheism" to gain a bad name even among many Atheists. He's certainly not a source I take overly serious, so please stay reluctant to quote him. 😀


Anyway, all of that is kinda off topic in regards to the opening post, isn't it? I'd gladly continue the discussion in a new thread if you're interested, though (even though the "God: yay or nay?" debates do tend to become repetitive. 😉 )
 
InsaneMystic said:
But it's just as absurd in the eyes for a true believer to start doubting the existence of God... and the believer has neither less nor more convincing arguments on his/her side than the Atheist. After all, objective proof cannot be had in the human system of reference, for anything (I did mention solipsism before, didn't I?)
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Disbelief in a religious theory means that there are endless possibilities of how the world works left, excepting one theory. Belief in a religious theory discounts all other possibilities, of which there are countless. Therefore, you can't say that belief and disbelief have the same logical basis, because they don't, belief is obviously going out on a limb.

InsaneMystic said:
Ugh. Dawkins. A rabid enough preacher of "scientistic Atheism" to gain a bad name even among many Atheists. He's certainly not a source I take overly serious, so please stay reluctant to quote him. 😀
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Richard Dawkins is brilliant.
 
B
BillyidolwannaB
Whatever scientific theory gets suggested believers can say god did it.
@jcc: believing in god is no more going out on a limb than the atheist view of 'everything must have just happened' one day. You know, science isn't against god!
 
BillyIdolWannaB said:
@jcc: believing in god is no more going out on a limb than the atheist view of 'everything must have just happened' one day. You know, science isn't against god!
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That's not the atheist view. Atheism is just a disbelief in god, there's no strict ideology to it. Regardless of which, nobody believes that everything just happened.
 
Edmund Blackadder said:
Don't blame the thread for the way the conversation has gone.

I just wanted to know which one you'd prefer to live.
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Gone for a week and I still cant rep ya, wierd.

I havn't really read the thread, im surpised it didnt come sooner actually considering a few others around this subject.

(This is one of my longer posts so sorry)

My belief

Im not gonna debate, but I will share my belief and people are welcome to yell at me 😀 ... I am a Christian and believe that Christ is the messiah. I consider myself (if I were to be slotted into a denomonation) a non-denominational reformed Christian.

I believe in a heaven and a hell based solely on wether you blieve in Christ. I have this belief because I believe in the Bible. I believe the bible to be inerrant and so I not need to pick and choose what to believe in and what God 'really means'. I believe that Christians who do not believe the word of God to be inerrant are inconsistent in their belief and have not adequately thought about their world-view and how to effectivly define their existance and their belief and subsequently often misrepresent Christianity.

I study theology in my spare time which if anything shows me just how much detail and intricisies are contained in the Bible. On top of that, I like apologetics which allows me to effectively argue my position.

Way I live
As for the way I live, I dont go to a big church, in fact I rarely go to church. It is importnat to be a part of a communion of believers as a believer and so I try to do that but organisations like the Catholic church disgust me. My reasoning is that they are completetly unbiblical...a fact evident to anyone who actually reads their Bible (preying through men for forgiveness, an inerrant human pope, the IDEA of a pope). Then their is the idlness you get from big churches and the number hypocrits they contain, it just doesnt interest me. If people were to know me though, i'm not a religious wacko or a fundamentalist... I am just consistant in my belief...I cant be half christian because as someone who thinks rationally and trys to challenge what I believe in, I have no room for half belief.

Points on Christianity
What I do believe is that Christianity is EXTREMELY mis understood. Especially in places like England where the people who I do talk to (this last weeks trip has yet again proved this to me) really do no nothing of which they try to use against you. A few things on this point...

1)the bible is made up of 66 books by 40 different authors, and their views align perfectly without contradictions(apparent contradictions are present and your welcome to form a biased opinion based on them if you want).
2)Things like The Ark where a billion different species couldnt exist...would make sense if natural selection didnt exist. God created a world where animals change...meaning 2000 species of Dog would require only a single Dog...It works out at a couple thousand species of animal are required for the levels of species diversity we have.
3)Natural Selection and Survival of the fittest...Im an engineer and everything I view is with a critical eye...Christians arn't stupid, Christians make up the science community too ya know! I have no problem with a God who creates a world where species adapt through mutation and genetic abnormalities that lend themselves to an ever improving species...why? Cause its brilliant! I still dont believe we came from mucus but if God chose to create us in the way of course he could, the Bible just doesnt explain things this way. I believe that man is unique and that human life is precious.
4) Time. There are quite a few verses in the bible that lend credence to the idea of time being a dimension of our existence(the way einstein proved it) and the idea of God just being the dimension beyond that makes perfect sense. So explaining how God created the universe from this position makes perfect sense in how we see our earth and its age. The bible speaks of day (earth created in 7 days say) as actually a 'timeperiod' in greek.. 'eros' that we translate into day. Theres plenty of argument on this one but I have no problem with God creating the world how he likes and providing order in the way he has...when you live outside of time, a million years can still be a day ('eros'.. time period) to a God outside of time. The point is the universe is very orderly...including the laws that define our universe...something that very much goes against the theory of entropy.
5) New Convenant and Old covenant. This would take a while for me to explain but try to understand their is the concept of new law and old law. Christ came to fulfill the law. We are no longer under the law of the past, so many of the old laws in levidicus no longer apply to our modern world. These are used by Christians and athiests alike to misrepresent the new convenant in Christ we are living in. Only moral law from the past applys to the world we live in today. We can eat pigs. lol.

Why Christianity and not others

I do enjoy study of other religions, even if it is hard for me to view it without strong bias..obviously. I would say it is because no other religion can adequately define my existence to the scrutiny I require and Christianity has done this to the point of blowing me away... This is before I even get into the ways Christ has changed my life, but I purposly didnt mention that till the end. 🙂

I dont live my life under the 'burden' of religion, in fact I drink and smoke like a lot people, I enjoy myself and live the life God has given me.
 
What I do believe is that Christianity is EXTREMELY mis understood. Especially in places like England where the people who I do talk to (this last weeks trip has yet again proved this to me) really do no nothing of which they try to use against you.
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I am SO with you on this. It is one of the things that really gets to me. I have had so many experiences of this at university and I end up having to walk away. I'm always happy to listen to and discuss my belief with others but when people start challenging me with unfounded arguments that only highlight the fact that they have NO idea what they are talking about...well then I tend to start feeling very UN-Christian towards them. Lol.

JCC I really agree with your definition of belief. At all. But my dinner is ready and I don't have time to go into it 😀

---------- Post added at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 PM ----------

^^ Thanks Mummy BB 🙂. I either meant 'really don't agree' or was intending to write 'disagree.' I could smell my dinner, it must have been distracting me!
 
B
Blondie Bear
You really do or really don't? o.O
Ah well, so we stay off topic. EB seems fine with it and as long as no mod intervenes, I guess I'm ok with it too. Lol.


JCC said:
Disbelief in a religious theory means that there are endless possibilities of how the world works left, excepting one theory. Belief in a religious theory discounts all other possibilities, of which there are countless. Therefore, you can't say that belief and disbelief have the same logical basis, because they don't, belief is obviously going out on a limb.
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Religious belief accepts the existence of God, without a rational, logical basis of empirical evidence for this belief.
Atheist belief discounts the existence of God, without a rational, logical basis of empirical evidence for this belief.

You go out on a limb either way, unless you're an agnostic - then, you stick to the facts.

Besides, as BillyIdolWannaB said in the rep comment, the belief that God caused the laws of nature to come into effect does not limit you to any one of a multitude of theories about what kind of natural laws these are. Don't lump together religion per se and fundamentalism, please.
Indeed, I personally - as a "solipsist in recovery" *g* - see the existence of God as a necessary basis to believe in natural science. With the assumption of God as the Prime Mover, I can then accept an empirical stance about the world, opening my mind to a multitude of possible scientific theories.


JCC said:
Richard Dawkins is brilliant.
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That's definitely a view where the best we can ever hope for is "agree to disagree". 😀


JCC said:
That's not the atheist view. Atheism is just a disbelief in god, there's no strict ideology to it. Regardless of which, nobody believes that everything just happened.
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I would consider "God cannot have done it as God doesn't exist" ideology enough. 😉

There is no non-metaphysical theory about what caused the Big Bang, nor will there ever be one. If you stick to empirical science, you will have to accept that it "just happened", as there cannot ever be an explanation to it because it, per def, "happened" beyond the limits of time and space that the empirical system requires.

The assumption "God did it" is as scientifically sound as any other theory. All theories' values in terms of empirism are straight zero. 😉
 
Flannen
Flannen
Agnosticism is just sitting on the fence! Lol.
InsaneMystic said:
Ah well, so we stay off topic. EB seems fine with it and as long as no mod intervenes, I guess I'm ok with it too. Lol.
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The MODs changed the title (twice actually) to 'The Existence of God' which doesn't really equate to the opening question so if its turned into a theological discussion, they must approve and I have no issue with it what so ever.

In fact I find this all amusing, considering where it started.

The reason I haven't weighed in is because Faith and Belief are two very personal things and I won't try to impose mine on anyone AND I'm not gonna be swayed in any debate that another way is better than mine, so there is no point in me getting involved because I have nothing to prove on this one.


Having said that, on the original question I will answer that I would rather live a life of belief/faith and find out it is hooey at the end of my life because I have lost nothing.
Granted a life without belief to find out God exists means you gain eternity of whatever is next BUT my faith is what keeps me going some days so its definitely worth keeping.
 
I would much prefer to spend my life as an Atheist and find I'm wrong, because in that case there are two possibilities:

a) God has no problem welcoming non believers into heaven, and everything's fine and dandy.
b) God sends non believers to hell unless they 'repent', in which case why would I want the acceptance of a being who thinks it's morally wrong to not believe in him? I would then refuse to 'repent' my 'sin' and go to hell, which doesn't sound too good, but I would have the moral high ground, which due to my supreme stubbornness is much more important than avoiding eternal torment.
 
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