Which is why I don't believe. I can't believe something without evidence. And as I see it there is no evidence for god, which as has been correctly noted, is not something that requires evidence in order to be believed. There.

Can we all stop bickering now?

Yes, yes we can.

This is the first post from a God-believing forum-goer that I could really appreciate. Why?

Love. This is the first post to focus on it. Love everyone, respect everyone, be open to everyone, and accept everyone. Definition of everyone: the people that you love, the people you don't love, people of "lower class" or "higher class", whores, druggies, rapists, and so on. Don't judge, lest ye be judged. It seems everyone here is so busy in defending their religion (here being Christianity) that they forget the real purpose of the whole thing. Love.

I think in agreement. I don't know what I believe, but I know I don't believe in religion. A great man once said, "When God meets money, you get religion."

God or god

I'm in a similar situation. I used to (somewhat) firmly believe in Christianity and in Jesus as God, but I've slowly questioned that and looked elsewhere. Firstly the whole corruption of religion turned me away. Then I wonder about the infinite universe (or multiverse) and how I can not possibly see it without other life in it.

Then I wonder about how similar we are to other animals, and how it just seems like we're nothing more than another species. I mean, we depend on the meat of animals and the air from plants and nutrients from bacteria, etc. If they weren't there, we would never live. To me, that helps proves we're nothing more than part of nature, not made by a god who is deeply concerned in our lives. Then I go from there and wonder about how saying we are created by god makes us feel superior to everything, almost turning ourselves into our own gods, which goes against the whole humbleness that most love-promoting religions preach.

But then I digress. I learn about the supposed multiverse and the complete unexplained quantum happenings. Ok, there's a big bang, but what about before that? Why was the big bang where it was? Why is the big bang even there? Why is anything here? Why I am I here thinking and typing? Why is there any reason for any of this? And I have to turn to something greater than what we are.

Higher, but Not God

We as humans think we are such powerful and superior beings, but what have we accomplished? Big buildings and big explosions? Sure, relative to us we look like real badass beings, but we don't know or understand anything of real importance. We may understand some physics, but referring back to those questions I asked: can anyone help me know exactly what (and which) infinity before the inifinity of the multiverse helped make this inifinity cause the next infinity of the whole infinity?

"Guh?" is right.

As of now, I don't believe in god, but I do believe in something higher and something far greater than we will ever be or even comprehend. In a way, that is god. But I don't think of god as an entity, just something that is higher, an idea, an expression, or even something so high we have no understanding of what we would call it.

I also see something higher in more than just what we don't understand. There is so much beauty in the world, from the sunsets to the flowers to the love I have for a girl or the love I have for my baby niece, the unexplained and immense beauty that can be seen in just about anything in the things we see or hear, touch or taste, feel and sense (or don't sense) makes me believe there is again something higher than we are.

But maybe this is a low-level "higher," as we can perceive this with our senses. Or maybe this is what all of higher is made of, just it becomes more complicated. Or maybe if we had senses other than the five we have we could then perceive other types of beauty and higher.

Conclusion

I don't know what I believe, I constantly ponder such things. But for some reason or another (of which I also ponder), I believe we as humans are driven to love one another and eventually live in harmony. People such as Jesus and Ghandi were on the right track; it's too bad it's hard to follow the path.

And I conclude with a quote from a great man,

Nice post manasecret.

Hopefully you don't think I'm not trying to preach love, acceptance and tolerance as well...?

People such as Jesus, Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. were on the right track, and there are plenty of other people who follow their examples.
There are also plenty of other people who don't, who manage to ruin everything that those of us who see humanity as worth being nice to strive for.

It isjust my hope that with incresed knowledge of everything that people will come to learn about and respect eevryone elses beliefs, and learn to treat every single other human on the face of the earth with the same respect you would treat a loved one. That's my core philosophy.

I am not trying to defend my beliefs, I have just tried to explain to some how they work. There are those however who seem to take this as an attack on their particular relgion of choice; if I wanted to do this, I wouldn't waste my time here. I'd buzz off to Infidels, UseNet or Talk Origins. Heck, there I could at least attempt to make a name for myself...!

Can we call the procedings to a close now? I don't want there to be any more slagging off of anyone elses beliefs. Jutin, if you wish to argue further may I suggest you do it somwhere else. My ICQ tag is in my profile if you want it.

Another great quote from another great man IMO:

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
--Dalai Lama

Thanks.

Quote:

Hopefully you don't think I'm not trying to preach love, acceptance and tolerance as well...?

I know you do, and I didn't mean to discount that or anyone else if it is such. What I meant is that no one in the thread had thoroughly focused on what I find most important in this world, that being love. And I appreciated that very much from Joeiss.


A wonderful quote. I know so little about religions such as buddhism and the one of the Dalai Lamas (don't even know if they have a name) and others such as of Tibet. But everything I do hear from them makes so much sense. Perhaps all religions aren't corrupt.

Again, thanks for the quote. Wonderful, wonderful quote.

No, if they were debating, they lost... that doesn't mean they are wrong.

Sure



Repeat this answer, and talk to me as if I were a 5 year old

and yes... you will get my point soon enough

Re: Prove the existance of GOD?
 

Funny, last time I checked I wasn't trying to prove god's existance

I agree 100%

but the point of this debate is to tell why or why you don't believe in God...

I'm not trying to prove God exists

It can be proven, but the person has to be willing to take steps him/herself

"The truth is in the eye of the beholder"

if that is true, in my life, God is the truth, period

And the point of all this is...?

"Sure"

I am assuming you're being sarcastic, and doubt the abilty of someone of scientific mind to doubt the theory of gravitation. Well it's already been shown that gravitation doesn't work when the scales are very large or very small. Hence people were scetical when it came to gravity.

If they weren't sceptical, quantum mechanics would never have been developed. If they had just accepted gravitation as being true, no-one would have bothered looking into it.

Similary, if everyione had just accepted the bible as the literal truth I wonder where we'd be.

"Repeat this answer, and talk to me as if I were a 5 year old"

I fail to see the reasons for your petulancy. Why do I have to have a directly apploicab;e and quantifiable personal experience (at least, this is what I assume you're asking for) for every single thing I believe? I merely look at evidence, either at first hand within my field, or second hand within the fields I know too little about.

"Funny, last time I checked I wasn't trying to prove god's existance"

But he's saying that if you do, you deny him.

"I'm not trying to prove God exists
It can be proven..."

In which case, you deny him. I think the quote goes: God says I refuse to prove I exist, for proof debies faith and wthout faith I am nothing. Then he does something which proves he exists, therefore by definition he doesn't. QED.

I'd like to see you prove it scientifically though... i.e. to other people, and not just yourself. In the scientific community, anecdotal evidence isn't acceptable.

"but the person has to be willing to take steps him/herself"

Well, I've done this backwards. I believed once, I don't any more. My findings ion the world of science are incompatible with my beliefs in a divine deity. And my findings in science make far more sense to me than religion ever did. In fact, you may even call it a revelation.

""The truth is in the eye of the beholder"
if that is true, in my life, God is the truth, period"

In your life, yes. But I thought the dunadan set up this thread in order to ask about MY life...? Again, you are trying to turn this into a debate, and because I am the person I am, I feel obliged to put you right over the things that I believe you to have misconceptions about; namely science in general.

So your all-conclusive and scientifically justifiable fantastic point that will prove me and all other hellbound atheists wrong beyond belief is...? I eagerly await the chance to be able to stop having to think about everything again.

How exactly is this an arguement aganst me?

I said a person has to take steps him/herself

Faith doesn't come from simply deciding to believe... at least mine didn't.

That's good... and you can look at my reply to your first post for a responce to that.

My miscomseption being?

I thought you were gonna stop posting after 150 replies? I knew you couldn't do it. :D

Truth is not in the eye of the beholder. Truth exists outside of belief, and is self-evident even if it contradicts belief.

Truth and belief can be one and the same, but they don't have to be.

I said 150???

I mean 1500 ;)

-edit-

ANYWAY-- this whole thread has become pointless. I'm not even gonna bother responding to the rest because it seems to me that you're all going around in circles anyway. But this little devil's advocate game has been fun enough.

I think that each of the points has been well enough worn out and it's about time to close this thread. I'm guessing that all the arguements that are going ot be answered have already been and the rest probably either don't have any answer, or don't have one to the knowledge of the people here.

It's time to let this die.

In life

Leo

I was waiting for a good post to end it on :)