Don't believe in God? Why not?

[nWoCHRISnWo]

"I just want to say that I've looked at many other religions and found flaws-- small things that go wrong. I, myself, am a Christain, and I believe in what I believe because of the facts I know about the Bible and God."

You've looked ay "many other religions." I bet you've "looked" into christianty a LOT more than the others, haven't you? And either way, you can't find flaws in the bible? Have you even read anyone else's replies, or just decided to "dissect" mine because it was shorter? Read sdtpikachu's replies... And Gekko said already "The Bible is a book about morals. Funny, because a lot of the stuff in the bible is made up. Garden of Eden... doesn't exist. Nice story until we got satellites and looked all over Egypt. It ain't there. Oh ya, and Apples can't grow in that region, so don't think they ate from an Apple tree. How do people still believe in it? They say if God doesn't want you to find it, you won't. Seems to me that ran out of answers" No flaws my ass.

"I haven't tried every religion, but I've studied the bible, Read up on it's backround, compared it with other books, and found it to be the most logical one out there."

And what makes it so impossible that we just haven't discovered how the universe was made yet? Science is CONSTANTLY discovering new things, yet you religious people don't acknowledge this. It may be the most logical, but how do you know there won't be a religion started in the enxt few years that is even more logical, or a scientish can prove a different way that the universe started?

"But it's simple enough to argue that everything around here is the effect of God's workmanship. Please, think about what you say before you say it"

ME think what I say before you think? First off, "air" is scientifically proven (you know what I mean) whereas there being a god is not. And everything is the effect of god's workmanship? Howso? I'm typing this because I WANT TO, bot because "god" told me to. I ate pizza today... god didn't make me, I ate it because I damn well wanted to. I kicked a cat today, why would god make me or even let me kick a cat? He's not stopping me from/making me do(oing) anything. If you can prove he is, be my guest.

"As for the controlling people-- that is simple. Look at the kings and dictators of this century. Take hitler for example. He controlled a country. If he didn't have control over the people, would they really have let him kill 500,000 jews (I'm not sure about the number). Would they really have let him start a war? He was in control-- No question about it."

That's different, and you know it. Hitler talked people into believening what he though. He made them think what he wanted them to do would help them and their country. He convinved them that they were donig the right thing. That's not what you people claim that god did/does, you're claiming that god created us and has complete control over everything we do. Show me ANYHTING that has complete control over things we do, nevermind creates people, and I might believe you.

"Who made the universe? Then why should we believe it's real? "

Who made the universe? We don't know, but that's not to say we'll never know. Scientists are constantly discovering new things, right? Right. So what makes you so confident that they'll never discover who created the universe? And we should believe the universe is real because we live in it. I see the universe, it's all around me. I don't see god anywhere.

And I don't believe you answered the question "Who has ever seen god?"

"You make it sound like it's a conspiricy. And what makes you think that most of the things that have to do with God happen after you die? As far as you know, we all go to Heaven after we die and that's it. Have you read the Bible and tried to understand what it says? If you did, then I'm sure you would realize that God has alot to do with us while we're still in this world."

If god had a lot to do with me right now, I would know it. I do what I want, why I want, when I want, and god doesn't cease me from donig anything, so what exactly is god doing then? Most christians will even admit that you cannot prove god wrong until you die and find out for sure, and it's true, I can't prove god wrong until after I die, right? Which is why no can can prove him wrong, because everyone who would know the truth would be dead, so it's just a conspiracy, yes. You can't prove he's real, can you? If you can, prove it to me. And if you can't, and no one else can, I have to wait until I die, in which case I wouldn't be able to tell you there was no god.

"And why would he do that? If he WAS real, then what would give you the right to tell him what to do, and what makes you think that you have half a clue of what he would do? Just another thought."

LOL... What makes YOU think you'd have half a clue as to what he thinks? I've seen several, several christians (TheGame as an example in GT for sure) say what god thinks, and how do you know? You don't, but you said the bible seems logical to you before... Well doesn't it seem logical to you that if god created me, he'd want me to know he did so?

[DeathsHand]

"There is a God but we denied him. We lose everything."

And if there is a god and he created man so that he could make his own decisions and blah blah blah and he'd be so mad that we'd "lose everything" after we'd die, it's his own damn fault for not making it obvious enough to non-believers that he's actually there

"Also with the Pyramids there's been huge talk about how they were built so perfectly, and stacked."

Well... when you have a ton of people working on the pyramids over a long period of time with lil' efficient machines or whatever, I don't see why they couldn't get it done... I mean, we can build these giant buildings with the machines we have today in... I dunno how much time exactly... but if we can do that, who says they couldn't build such big "monuments" or whatever you wanna call them in a much LONGER period of time with many more people because they had more primitive ways of doing things?

I think it sounds reasonable to me...

and again, as for the big head thingies... I havn't payed much attention to those... The main thing I remember them as is something I kept running into in "Life Force" on NES... I'll get you sometime, big stone head things!

[nWoCHRISnWo]

Bobcat: "My point is that if science can't prove how these things got here, then who's to say God doesn't exist?"

Science hasn't discovered how the universe was built/made yet, but why is it impossible to think that they will in years from now? Scientists are constantly making new discoveries, right? So who's to say they won't make the discovery we're all fighting about right now?

And no one can really prove god doesn't exist, because like I said above in my reply to the new guy, you'd have to be dead first. I'm living right now, and how can I prove god's not real? I haven't seen him, no one else has that's living, and to my knowledge, he hasn't done **** for me. So I have to wait till I die and see if there's a heaven, or hell eh? Then I'd be dead and it'd be too late to prove you wrong.

[TheGrimReaper]

I can see that this conversation will go in somewhat the way of the last one.

[GameMaster]

This argument can never be proved...for now...why argue...
Born agains these days

[BigJustinW]

Who made the universe? We don't know, but that's not to say we'll never know. Scientists are constantly discovering new things, right? Right. So what makes you so confident that they'll never discover who created the universe?

Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came.

They can figure out about a round world, and Gravity, because both things are still around to look at now. BUt how can they discover who created earth?

There may be clues, but it's impossible to make a fact out of these clues unless you go back in time and whitness it for yourself.

I don't that a Scientist is crazy enough to create a time machine either.

[DeathsHand]

Originally posted by BigJustinW

Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came.

.... hmm?

"But how can they discover who created earth"

Or what...

Sorry, I just woke up not too long ago... I'll... say more later....

[Xantar]

Originally posted by BigJustinW


Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came.

Am I reading you right? Because I'm wondering what you think dinosaurs are.

[sdtPikachu]

"What?

Offensive???"

Yes, offensive. You constantly assume that you cannot possibly be wrong and that everyone who doesn't think the same as you is going to hell.

OK, have it your way. You, in believing in god, are going to waste your life worshipping an idol who does not exist. You will die expecting eternal happiness which will never come. Your last thoughts will be hoping for something better, and they will never be granted.

Now, that's me stating my beliefs as fact. Are you not offended? Can you not see how imposing your beliefs in others as the only possible truth is a gross insult to every humans right to believe what they want to believe?

"If someone asks me a question about God, I'm going to answer it as if it were fact... and there is nothing you can do about it."

Then you are wrong. It is an opinion, and there is nothing YOU can do to change that fact. It will become fact when someone comes up with irrefutable proof that god exists. Until then, it is just an opinion and you are wrong to assume otherwise.

"And what's with your long ass posts, 99% of the stuff you replied to wasn't even aimed at you."

The "lond assedness" of it is due to some peoples inability to understand someones viewpoint. Am I not allowed to reply to stuff that was not specifically directed at me? Am I not allowed to express my own opinion on the matter?

"Is anybody going to argue my point?"

The one about easter Island and stuff? I did in my "long assed" posts which it seems no-one can be bothered to read.

"I don't have to prove something wrong to know it's not real"

Good point; BigJ - you can't prove that invisible pink unicorns don't exist... do you believe in them? From what I know and believe, there is as much basis for these exisiting as there is a god.

"it's probably impossible to try EVERY religion"

Not ony impossible, but blasphemous in the eyes of most, and you'll go to hell for sure.

" I mean, seriously, just look at it this way, you're just one of the millions who has an opinion which is different that millions of others, and you think you're right?"

By far the greatest problem I have with most organised religion, and certain people who shall remain nameless who adhere to this. And then the whole "they don't believe what I know to be true, therefore I am superior and they are going to burn in hell" attitude.

"I just want to say that I've looked at many other religions and found flaws"

Me too, but christianity had the first ones I saw.

"I know that the Bible has never been wrong."

You may "know" this, but that doesn't make it fact.

"If you compare the origional biblical transcripts with other accepted historical documents, you will find no extraordinary contradictions."

I beg to differ. true, much of the stuff was based on truth as far as I believe, but where are other historical mentions of all those miracles jesus supposedly performed? Just in the bible and it's spinoffs.
And as far as the old testament goes... so you really think the earth is just over 6000 years old? This doesn't fly in the face of historical documents, it flies in the face of science. We can see that the erath is much MUCH older. And I'd say the genesis bit is a prettty important part of most (christian) god based religions, no?

"I know that the Bible has no in context contradictions in it's origional manuscripts."

What do you classify as "original manuscripts"? Linguistic studies suggest that the old testament not only underwent heavy editorial work after the time of jesus, but probably authorial work as well.

As far as contradiction goes... here's a start.

http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/index.html

"I know that the Bible's teachings are invaluable."

I think you'll find most people don't argue with this, but you'll know that most atheists and egg nog sticks will see it differently. Persoanlly I see religion and the bible as a great way of creating a stable society amongst humans; it advocates being nice to people, keeping clean, not shagging your sister, that sort of thing, and the it uses fear of an all powerful being to scare people into doing it. THAT is the problem I have with organised religion. I have no bones against the practices of the individual.

Just because religion PROPAGATES humanitarian principles (for the most part -we'll ignore religious wars for now) doesn't mean it INVENTED them.

"I haven't tried every religion, but I've studied the bible, Read up on it's backround, compared it with other books, and found it to be the most logical one out there."

Well Buddhism makes alot more sense to me than christainity ever will, mainly because it's the only one I've come across that does not require a beliefe in an existential eity ofone form or another.
But as far as logic goes, science for me beats every religion hands down.

"A place that we don't know of? Odd. If you didn't know if it, then how can you speak of it?"

What is this supposed to prove? On the surface it seems like the stupid old argument "don't you have to know god exists before you can stop believing in him?" He speaks of it because religious people speak of it.

"would they really have let him kill 500,000 jews"

6 million actually. Ooh hold on, I've got a good quote for this...

"... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." - Hitler

"Who made the universe? Then why should we believe it's real?"

We believe the universe is real because we can see it with our own eyes. But isn't it enough to say a garden is pretty without saying there are fairies at the bottom too?

"As far as you know, we all go to Heaven after we die and that's it"

And as far as you know, we all just rot after we die. This is a theological question, and not I believe the topic of this thread.

"And why would he do that? If he WAS real, then what would give you the right to tell him what to do, and what makes you think that you have half a clue of what he would do? Just another thought."

Which leads me to the following conclusion: if god exists but does not show us any provable signs that he does, he has planted the seeds of doubt in our minds. Hence some people do not believe in him. And yet despite this, apparently god still thinks you should believe in him without (to me) any beleivable evidence of him actually exisiting, and if you don't you're going to fry in hell forever. This means that you god has the sort of mentality of the people who go around leaving hats on the street with bricks under them, wating for people to stub their toe. Not the kind of god I would be happy worshipping.

"This is known as Pascal's wager."

Ah, Pascals wager again. Try looking at some of the online forums where Pascals wager has been done to death. Then come back and explain your logic.

"Although there are many religions to follow, wouldn't you think it's best to at least choose one?"

Why? I am quite happy in having no religion. I fact, I am much happier knowing that no-one is in control of me but myself.

"You don't lose anything by taking it"

I do. Assuming your standpoint of the christian god, I lose my right to say that when I see something I do not understand I wish to find out what it is, how it works. I lose my right to accept humans on their character alone, and have to judge them on their beliefs. I lose the right to decide how to live my life. I place total control of myself in the hands of an organisation controlled by humans, supposedly acting in gods name.

I lose my right to think what I want to think. This is what I belieev makes me a free human, and you are going to have to kill me before I give this up.

" Like how the world would turn out in the future, and apparently it was really accurate."

So many religions rely on prophecy... but can I ask, what has given more definite and accurate prophecies than science?

Besides, depending on how you look at them, the prophecies can explain a multitude of separate and entirely different circumstances. Take a look at my thoughts on horoscopes.

"My point is that if science can't prove how these things got here, then who's to say God doesn't exist?"

Science can show how men put them there, and has done. So why assume that some ultra-powerful deity did it? It's like me saying "wow, I can see how someone could have made that computer program, but there's no way I could do it, so it must be the work of a god". It is an invalid argument form a scientific standpoint.

"Read sdtpikachu's replies... "

Nah, my posts are too "long assed" to be worth considering apparently. Obviously someone who tries to put their POV across in as detailed a manner as possible obviously isn't worth paying attention to.

"But it's simple enough to argue that everything around here is the effect of God's workmanship."

Yes, it's so much easier just to lie back and not think about it at all. I don't want to THINK I know what happened, I want to KNOW what happened. The only way I can find out is by going out with an open mind and looking at all the available evidence. And to me, the scientific evidence makes a whole lot more sense than the religious stuff.

[next post...]

[sdtPikachu]

"I can see that this conversation will go in somewhat the way of the last one."

Yep... sadly enough. Most people can't have an oen discussion on these views without taking it too personally.
Of course it's not made any easier by remarks I find insulting which are responded with "How is it insulting?" instead of "I'm sorry, I just find it difficult to see things from your perspective"

"Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came."

?!?!?!?!?
Have you even HEARD of geology? Palaeobiology?
We have discovered literally thousands of species which do not and never did co-exist with humans.

"BUt how can they discover who created earth?"

Maybe you should say "what" created the earth. You have no evidence it was god, I have no evidence it wasn't sneezed out of the mouth of a creature called the great green arkleseizure. Which one of us is right? It's opinion versus opinion. Where the difference comes in however is that science gathers more and more information daily, which lead to new avenues of thought, new hypotheses, new theories. Religion does not do this.

What happens if conclusive scientific proof that the universe WAS sneezed out of the mouth of a creature called the great green arkleseizure was found out tomorrow? Would you accept it?

"There may be clues, but it's impossible to make a fact out of these clues unless you go back in time and whitness it for yourself."

You misunderstand the nature of science. We look at things as they are today, and we formulate laws... such as "if you drop an apple, it falls". Now it seems likely to me that this has been the case throughout time itself. In fact, we can even see gravity forming star systems at this very second. No, we can't see exactly what happened a billion years ago. That is why we gather evidence, formuate hypotheses and eventually theories. We see what we can see from what remains of the time... we think "how can this have happened?" and we create a hypothesis based on this. We then test this by looking at other examples of things that happened at the same time and/or at a different place, and see if that fits our current hypothesis. If not, we wonder why this is. If we can think of an alternative hypothesis that fits the evidence better, that will become our new hypothesis, until we have gathered more evidence which does not fit our current hypothesis. Thus we continually remodify our thoughts on the matter to fit in with observation.

See "scientific method"

"I don't that a Scientist is crazy enough to create a time machine either."

So you say because we can't create a time machine, we can't say that this fossil is 120 million years old? Explain your logic please.

[TheGrimReaper]

Am I the only Christian here that does not offend people?

[BigJustinW]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
"What?

Offensive???"

Yes, offensive. You constantly assume that you cannot possibly be wrong and that everyone who doesn't think the same as you is going to hell.

No... you constantly assume that I assume that everybody who isn't thinking the same as me will go to hell.

I don't know what they are going to do with thier lives, and it's not me who makes that judgement call. Because you think one way now, it doesn't mean you will always think that way.

In gekko's case... I said IF (keyword: IF) you go to hell, you know who to blame.

How is this offencive?

[BigJustinW]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
So you say because we can't create a time machine, we can't say that this fossil is 120 million years old? Explain your logic please.

The fact is, a scientist 120million years ago would have to be studying it the WHOLE time to make an exact system on dating things.

I think carbon dating is BS, they are making estimates, and they don't have an exact system to it...

If you take the fossil to 3 different carbon dating places, you will get three totally different answers.

[BigJustinW]

Originally posted by Xantar


Am I reading you right? Because I'm wondering what you think dinosaurs are.

What solid proof is there that dinosaurs came before humans.

[Xantar]

Do you even know how carbon dating works? Do you understand the science behind it? Do you understand how the method was developed?

Because if you did and you still thought it was BS, I would have to conclude that you are willfully blind. I'm sorry if that sounds offensive, but that's what I think. You are perfectly welcome to believe what you will about God, but I still want to hear your reasons for not believing the results of carbon dating. You're right in that it produces estimates, but no carbon dating I've ever heard of has stated that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time.