Do you believe in God?

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To see what I mean by thee definition thing... take a look at Spinoza's Ethics... The whole first part of the book is line after line of epiphany, where he is setting out clear definitions and the trippy part is that the interpretation of those definitions can be used powerfully to prove that God exists and does not exist... just depending on thee "angle" you look at it. I loved my professor at UK who had one section of the class devoted to studying Leibniz's Monadology alongside Spinoza's Ethics... and thee clash seemed more of a marriage to me... but no one else in the class could see it. In fact, on eof my only public meltdowns in college happened when I tried to point this out and it seemed like the whole class turned against me like I had just uttered the stupidest thing equivalent to some "humans walked with dinosaurs s**t" (the whole philosophy department was heavily secular leaning)... I actually ended up dropping out the next semester. I am telling you this diagnosis is so healing for me to be able to re-examine my life experiences. Oh... but I got an A on that exam and i still feel like it was some of my best "in-class writing ever"... I was inspired.

Last edited by NoahYates on 04 Mar 2016, 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've never understood the fascination with Gods, or supernatural/magic forces in general. No, I do not believe in God, or any other deity in any form. Nor do I believe in ghosts, demons, curses, visions, karma, or anything else in that line of thinking.

I'm just being honest about my opinion of religious thought, that it's not only wrong, but dangerous to society and the people that hold those beliefs. I'm insulted at religion's efforts to avoid taxes, undermine gay and women's rights, distort science, abuse children, etc. Wishful thinking is the least offensive term I can think of.

I starteed a new topic in this sub-forum a few days ago called "Asperger's Syndrome and The Third Eye." There is more discussion in on this topic of "the differences in the quality of people's unique thought processes" having an influence on this whole subject as well." I invite people to speculate on that..

I think this issue of the atrocities committed in the name of religion has to be separated from the question of whether God exists. I can agree with almost everything Christopher Hitchens has to say... except for when he says "Therefore God not only doesn't exist.... I hope he does not." William Lane Craig and John Lennox both pointed this out when they debated him.

As far as I am concerned there is only one argument against the existence of God that I struggle with... and that is the problem of pain and suffering... However, that is the problem that the world's great religions deal with in the most profound and timelessly wise ways. For anyone interested in a brief education of the core source wisdom of all of the great religions pick up a copy of Philip Novak's "The World's Wisdom."
Also look into Alan Watts for a very good synthesis of all spiritualities merged into one. William Lane Craig and John Lennox... Ravi Zacharias, Alvin Plantinga all have great responses to thee problem of evil (pain and suffering)... but I wish they could get hold of some Alan Watts. I feeel that the fruit of eastern philosophy/spirituallity mysticism is vastly underappreciateed by eeven the top Christian thinkers... I feel they are waaaay overly exclusive. Here is one of my favorite lectures by Alan where he answers this question in the way that aligns the closest with my own understanding of the meaning of life and how we find ourselves in the experience.

I think these prove a supernatural side to life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5vh6-7Skvs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUK1P5x9Xak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZi3el3YB3M

They also match up closely to the bible

Wow those look cool... I will def have check those out!

Not to me it aint.

If you want to tell me, or them, how wrong any of us are... PROVE IT.

If you cant? Dont go around claiming how superior your arguement is, because if you had a "superior" one, it'd be something you can prove. If you have such a scientific view, you'd know you've found... no proof of anything at all. Just like any of us.

And really, you COMPLETELY missed the point of what I was saying... which, frankly, was what I expected. Again, reading from a script here...




2 things:

1. There's a key word there: OPINION. You act like it's FACT. But no. I dont care how right you think you are, it's an OPINION. Or perhaps the word "belief" fits more, hard to say. The problem wasnt that you have an opinion. It's that you were going around telling others how superior you think you are for it. I dont know why that's so hard to understand, but I tell you this: Belittling others for their beliefs? Trust me, it puts you on the "offensive" side too, if you do it. It's part of the problem. And the same very, very tired part of the script you've been reading from this whole time.

2. ......those things you list there have literally NOTHING to do with the topic this thread is about. Nothing. I mean, really... avoiding taxes? Really? .....REALLY? I just... *facepalm*

It sounds to me like what you ACTUALLY have an issue with isnt just religion, but the fact that people USE religion as an excuse to do bad things. That's an ENTIRELY different topic than "do you believe in God". Again, examine things BEFORE stating them, please... If you want to discuss that bit, it might be worth going and making a topic about people using religion to excuse bad behavior.

Dont forget one key thing though: People can abuse atheism in the same way.


Oh, and one last thing: If you genuinely believe that all religious people act like that.... because that's what you infer by saying that "religious thought is wrong and dangerous to society"... then you havent been listening at all to those that are on this site who are religious. Because if you have... the fact that they're NOT a big pile of crazed wackos kinda instantly proves that wrong.

Some people take religion and use it wrongly, yes. But some people could take a damn CUPCAKE and use it wrongly. Drop poison in it. Does that make cupcakes wrong and dangerous? I sure hope not.

Honestly, even if you took the religion out of the people that are using it for bad things... those are the sort of people that would likely just go find something ELSE, and use that wrongly instead. But again... that's a different debate that deserves a totally different topic, really. And one that I dont have a particular interest in myself (as that's literally the extent of my thoughts on it).

And that'll be all for now, before I go into sarcasm overload. I've stated all that needs to be stated. To go any further would be to bring about The Flaming.

I don't think religion is a big deal, nor do most people in Canada statistically think that it is, although most Canadians believe there is a god, and we're not as secular as the UK, although I think we should be. We tend to see people in the UK or even France something as our cousins than the US.

God is no more real than the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology, along with ghosts, demons, angels, witchcraft, vampires and zombies. But I guess I can't be an atheist if I positively HATE god and Christian religion in general. Hating something you don't believe exists really doesn't make sense. Why would anyone what to believe in a god who supposedly loves us but is constantly letting horrible things happen to innocent people? But I have to hate *someone* and blame them for everything that goes wrong. The devil? Yeah, right.

I am frightened by people's belief in pseudoscience and creationism. We non-creationists believe fossils that are millions of years old are actually real and that dinosaurs and humans co-existing only happens on The Flintstones, so we have been brainwashed to ignore the bible and are going straight to hell. Give me a break. It's mostly Americans who believe in this garbage and want to "save" the world by forcing it on non-believers. And if Americans start moving up to Canada because Trump gets elected, they will be bringing this with them and forcing it on us even more.

The US thinks religion is way too much of a big deal for a developed country. Most countries where it's a big deal are ravaged by war and poverty and live like it's still The Middle Ages.

You need to make sure you recognize the distinction between creationism and "young Earth creationism." Also... if you are going to assert that God is not real then you should provide arguments and evidence for that claim... even if it is just to cite a source like I am fond of doing, because often I find that certain people can articulate sketches of what I think better than I can (or at least more easily so that it is convenient to eloquently communicate a point to someone.)

One of my favorite talks by the always charming and insightful John Lennox

I appreciate what you have to say. Although I wouldn't really obligate anyone to cite sources for their non belief in a God, it is preferable to needlessly tearing down the beliefs of others.

You have some interesting things to say. I might check out some of the videos and sources posted recently.

Thank you for sharing.

I guess I'm just so dangerous then even though I don't fit into any of the injustices you mention. Yeah, I'm a Christian, so I guess you should lock me up or put me in front of a firing squad.

Seriously, I have not been to one church where they do the things you mention. Even though the media seems to focus on certain sub groups that use the name of God to do evil. You might want to try doing some actual research before you start applying narrow stereo types on such a large demographics.

Would you like to start stereo typing and bashing Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists now as well? Glad to see such love and tolerance here.

Wow, a few legitimate criticisms of religion, and all of a sudden I'm a murderer? Unlike you, I'm able to separate the religion from the victims followers. There are many social reasons why an otherwise reasonable person would join a religion. Even if you are relatively modern in your social mores, you still have faith, and I think faith is the original sin of all religions.

That is very true... I should not have been so strong in my language. I was just kind of musing off of the idea that atheism is not a lack of belief in God (that is agnosticism)... rather, atheism is the positive assertion that there is no God. (the topic of the William Lane Craig video) So when someone claims to be an atheist I want to hear what they do believe.... And why those beliefs entail that God could not or does not exist.

I want to note that I actually only really like to discuss these issues in text. I have a hard time coherently articulating my thoughts in person. I actually have avoided discussing these issues with anyone except for my dad, because i hate arguments... (as it turns out many of the people around me are atheist and skeptics.) As I say, this is one of my favorite topics... and I feel like it is thee deepest subject one can think/talk about ultimately.... whether or not a person believes!