The Existence of God [Discussion Topic: See First Post]

yeah i find it hard to believe all that stuff that the bible talks about actually happened. i suppose there was a man named Jesus. but how do we know that all that stuff wasent made up? theologists say that we definetitly know The bible is true from when abram meets God and makes a covenant with him. but how can they prove that?? thats what makes it hard to belive.

i sorta belive in it and sorta dont. the whole god making the word is bogus. everyone knows that cant be true. if he made earth did he make the other plantes? why did he make the other planets? alot of the stuff doesnt match well and makes no sense.

I'm not quite sure.

I can view it possible for someone to have created the world [sort of], but I don't believe there would be a "Heaven" or "Hell". That's mainly what I find really ridiculous.

And I find Christians contradicting their own religion all the time. Some say that God doesn't help you with your prayers, but others say he does. I'd like to know which one is true ._.

To be honest, I don't really have a good reason for not believing in God. I'm just the kind of person that would like to see it in real life, and have modern proof that something exists, not some 2,000 year old book.

Something that we've been discussing in my Ancient World Civilizations class is a bunch of polytheistic ancient civilizations. My history book says that they came up with all of their gods to explain natural disasters, and to explain why there was all this bad in life. It was a way to lay the blame on someone other than themselves. Is it so hard to think that the idea of God could have been created as a way to lay blame on something else?

Christianity itself didn't even come up with a way to explain our creation. Christianity adopted the idea from Hinduism.

And I don't deny the existence of Jesus, but I don't believe that he was the son of God. I think he was just an average Joe that wanted an explanation for the things he saw in life. I for one would like an explanation for the things I see, but I'm not going to believe one person.

I would probably be sent to the loony bin if I said that I've been "touched by God", and that I'm "enlightened". People back then were just gullible IMO.

Like I said, I don't have a very good reason for my beliefs. I just want modern proof.

Gamerad and GamerGirl321: That's great, but this isn't the Religion topic in General Chat. Back up your opinions with something at least. Posts deleted.

Here i got a question
how do you know of god?
Not about god, of god.

Ok...?

Care to rephrase that? In words we can all understand?

On 02-Oct-2007 Arsonist said:

NOTICE: the italicized section of this post is not aimed toward Christians in general. For the most part, it is only in reference to fundamental Christians who would agree with the following statement: If you do not accept Christ as your savior and repent for original sin, you will go to hell, no questions asked. If you do not agree with this statement, I advise you don't even read the italicized portion. But do what you will.


"they are doomed for hell, GIO"

Well, to me, personally, you've just outlined a flaw in fundamentalist Christianity. A person can be doomed for hell just for being a victim of circumstance. Let's look at a few scenarios.

Let's say a soon-to-be-single-mother is dying of heart disease. The infant dies during delivery, as does the mother. This baby, which was a living human, never had the chance to repent for original sin. An innocent child is condemned to an eternity of hellfire simply for not being alive long enough to be Christian.
To me, that is a flaw. As a Christian, I'm sure you know that all humans are inherently sinful because of the actions of Eve when she bit the apples against the word of God. Now, obviously, sinners who have not repented go to hell. So this little child is going to hell simply because they didn't get a chance to apologize?

Next scenario: a man who was raised by pessimistic atheist parents. These parents taught their son that the world was not a good place, and that no benevolent God would allow for such cruelty. Whether you agree with the statement or not, you must acknowledge that some innocent children are raised by that belief. So naturally, that's what they start off believing. So let's say this atheist-born human is drafted into a war at age 18, and then he dies at age 20. He was raised to see the bad in the world, and then he died doing just that. He never had a chance to glimpse any indication of a benevolent God. And for this, he will burn in hell for eternity? Just because he had parents who were not good Christians? To me, that is a flaw.

Heck, even the concept of original sin seems flawed to me. Vengeance is a sin, and yet God has got so much of a grudge that he'll punish us unless we repent for something our ancestors did thousands of years ago? I mean, I can't really control what Eve did thousands of years ago, now can I? It really is't my fault. Yet, because I haven't repented for this original sin - the sin of being human - I'm going to burn forever? I get to experience an eternity of agony because I'm not sorry for having been born? I feel like I'm being treated somewhat unfairly there...

But what bugs me most about fundamentalist Christianity is that it condemns good men. Before you argue, let me explain. It could take a minute, so bear with me.
According to Christianity, Jesus Christ died to forgive our sins. He loved everyone so much that He was willing to let them kill Him - and forgive them for it - just to live the concept of turning the other cheek. Forgiveness. Peace. Right? He was willing to die for the betterment and forgiveness of humanity. Now, being that He is the savior of humanity, it stands to reason that humans should want to be more like Him, right? So we should all strive to do that same sort of thing. If we are attacked, we should turn the other cheek. If we are killed, we should die in the name of forgiveness, and not hold a grudge against our killer. Obviously people don't do this, but that's beside the point. It should be the long-run goal of a good Christian, right? The Christian will slip up sometimes - some more than others - because man is fallible. But the Christian goal should be to live with the same morals as Christ.
Now, let's look at someone who did exactly that. He was willing to die in the name of peace, and he held no grudges. He believed whole-heartedly - perhaps more than any man in recent memory - that violence was wrong. He did unto others as he would have them do unto him, and he treated them as he would prefer to be treated: with peace. Total peace. Does this man sound like a good person? His name was Mahatma Gandhi. He had not accepted Christ as his savior. So this admirable human being, this gentle soul, will theoretically be burning in hell forever. Even though he lived by extremely Christian morals, he didn't do it in the name of God or for His will, so he will suffer eternally. To me, that is a flaw. That benevolent, peaceful, caring, awesome human being will suffer when his only crime was being good in the name of humanity instead of in the name of God.

Now, as for the true topic of the existence of God, I honestly don't know if any intelligent debate can exist. Because the existence of God is purely a matter of faith. It cannot, under any possible circumstances, be proven either way to the living. Everything that happens in life has multiple explanations. And every universal explanation has flaws when you look at it a certain way, science and religion included. So there is no humanly possible way to discern the universal truth regarding the existence of God, at least not one readily available to the living. The truth might become clear in death, but none of us really know because... well, we're alive. Saying "there can be no God" would be like saying "there can be no life anywhere else in the universe." Until you have personally explored every point in existence within our universe, you don't actually know that there isn't life elsewhere. Same with religion. I can say I don't believe there is a God, but until I have experienced every possible aspect of existence (death included), I can't know for sure. So unles you're debating with the dead, there really isn't a way to prove whether God does or does not exist.

There is only logic and faith, both of which stemmed from a basic thirst for understanding. The logical search for validating facts to verify answers, and the faithful accept answers given to them, knowing in their hearts that they are not being lied to. We can't really know who is right yet.

For what it's worth, I am an atheist, but an open-minded one. I acknowledge that an all-powerful all-seeing all-knowing supreme being is physically possible and simply beyond my realm of understanding. But, I have managed to find satisfactory explanations for things using science, so as of yet, I do not believe in God.

Every other post in the world does not rival this one ^. I am no longer going to debate in this topic because of this post right here. How can we debate this? I personally believe in God but there is no way I can prove it. Same as an atheist, you can't prove God doesn't exist. There is no way I can press my beliefs on anyone here and I wouldn't if I could.

P.S: Arsonist is the greatest debator, debater, debatee (I don't know) ever.

the correct word would be 'debator', norbie.

and yes, i agree with full contention that it is impossible to prove that god does exist, while at the same time it is impossible to prove that he doesn't exist.

yeah i believe in God cause we dont just appear out of thin air i say without religion science doesnt make sense and without science religion doesnt make sense

Rhetoric is fine, but could you please back it up with some examples? Also, please read the section of the rules on posting etiquette.

« Last edited by Shadow_Lord on Oct 15th 2007 »

I too do not believe in God. Everything just does not make sense and I just can't grasp why people believe He exists based on a book and based on someone who lived named Jesus Christ.

Evidence=0

On 15-Oct-2007 norbie007 said:

Every other post in the world does not rival this one ^. I am no longer going to debate in this topic because of this post right here. How can we debate this? I personally believe in God but there is no way I can prove it. Same as an atheist, you can't prove God doesn't exist. There is no way I can press my beliefs on anyone here and I wouldn't if I could.

P.S: Arsonist is the greatest debator, debater, debatee (I don't know) ever.

What? He almost killed the debate and you're calling him the greatest debator ever? That last part of his post was utter BS! So what if we can't prove things either way here? That's not the point of debating. The point is to get your point of view across, and to get the person or persons to think - and hopefully do a bit of thinking yourself. It's not about fact or fiction, truth or lies, right or wrong; it's about expressing yourself, and providing balanced, rational arguments to back up your opinions.

On 16-Oct-2007 Shadow_Lord said:

What? He almost killed the debate and you're calling him the greatest debator ever? That last part of his post was utter BS! So what if we can't prove things either way here? That's not the point of debating. The point is to get your point of view across, and to get the person or persons to think - and hopefully do a bit of thinking yourself. It's not about fact or fiction, truth or lies, right or wrong; it's about expressing yourself, and providing balanced, rational arguments to back up your opinions.

I'm certainly not the greatest debator ever; of that you can both rest assured.

But I don't quite understand why you are calling a segment of my post 'utter BS.' I was not trying to say "Stop trying to debate, it won't work, don't waste your time." The concept I am working from is that, in intelligent debate, you need facts to support your argument. And since there are no facts to support God one way or the other, all we can work with is our own personal beliefs. And there isn't anything wrong with personal beliefs in debate. But, if the only way we can support them is by saying "it's physically possible that I am correct," then is that really an intelligent debate? Basically, that comes down to "Can you prove that He exists?" VS "Can you prove that He doesn't?" To me, that's not an intelligent debate.

But, let's put that aside and just look at some of the posts in this thread, shall we?

You: "Gamerad and GamerGirl321: That's great, but this isn't the Religion topic in General Chat. Back up your opinions with something at least. Posts deleted."

Fair enough. Let's have a look at the post you made before that one.

You again: "I don't believe in God. This is not because I believe the existence of one is impossible, it's just that, so far, I haven't been given any convincing evidence for one."

With all due respect, the only thing you backed your opinion with was a lack of proof that you're wrong. Would it have been better if Gamerad and Gamergirl had said "I believe in God because Shadow_Lord hasn't convinced me that God doesn't exist"? Because that's essentially what you did, except from the other side of the discussion.

Furthermore, if you'll be so kind as to read the last paragraph of my first post in this topic...

Me: "For what it's worth, I am an atheist, but an open-minded one. I acknowledge that an all-powerful all-seeing all-knowing supreme being is physically possible and simply beyond my realm of understanding. But, I have managed to find satisfactory explanations for things using science, so as of yet, I do not believe in God."

Notice how we're both saying the exact same thing in different ways? And yet, for some reason, my post was BS while yours was valid? I don't get it. Yes, I also acknowledged that it cannot be proven either way, but that's true: it cannot be proven either way. Does that mean it isn't open for discussion? No. If I thought it was closed for discussion, I'd not be here, discussing it. But it does mean that intellectual back-and-forth debate on the subject would be difficult. For proof, look at the number of posts in this thread that are a part of back-and-forth debate on the existence of God. I can count those posts on one hand.

I will admit that I could have worded it better, of course. I never meant to say "this cannot be discussed." I meant to say "In the absense of proof or strong evidence, there is difficulty in providing an intellectually challenging discussion on whether or not God exists."

I agree fully with Arsonist. While this is a heated debate, there's no point to it, considering we will never truly know until we die.

Locked. There's not much we can do on this topic besides express our opinions.

Adding to say: next time anybody wants to quote someone just to say they agree, it gets deleted, and I'm not going to bother warning you about it; if you think your post got deleted, it probably did, and you probably didn't read the rules.

Urgh, this was fine until people suddenly thought "you can't prove it right or wrong" is the be all and end all of all things... for the record, nothing can be sufficiently proven right or wrong by anyone's standards, so why bother trying?

I'm only keeping this closed because the bulk of this forum cannot in fact conduct a intellectual debate without having idiots quoting for truth or at least reading before posting; this topic is perfectly fine, it's the posts that are screwed up.

Don't make me go back to deleting posts without warning.

Also important: Arsonist is a girl.

Re-opened. RJ, did you not read my last post? Well, either way, let me re-iterate: just because you can't prove something doesn't mean you can't debate it.

Anyway, in response to Arsonist (whom I apologise to for calling a boy, though in my defence there's no way I could've known), I suppose I should've given a bit more. I apologise. Anyway, the post I should've given at the start:

I'm an atheist. Why? Well, I could spend a long time going through as many arguments for the existence of God that I know, and go through each individual reason why I think they don't work. But I don't need to. Because every argument I've ever heard from a religious point of view has always argued for the exitence of a god. Never have I heard an adequate arguement for the exitence of a particular god (eg. the Christian god), beyond religious experience. And while there are plenty of occurences which can't be explained by modern science, these experiences are found in just about every religion you come across, whether it's Christiannity, Islam, Hinduism, or any other religion.

So, to sum up, the reason I'm an atheist is because even if I were to accept that a god is necessary, which I don't anyway, I've never been given any evidnece to let me know which god is the 'right god'.

ok to rephrase my question
how do you know about god? threw a book which you were shown when you were young or somtime in your life and you took it and when thousands of people told you it was real you believed it
so if thousands of people told you that if you sat in a fire for years without food andwater that you wouldnt die? no thats not right because you were taught you neede dfood and water to survive right?
so how do you know of god besides people and one simple book and sont say that earth bec ause there are also scientific theorys that could prove even more than god even though i do not believe in the evolution theory i do not believe in the god theory so even though im an athiest im still not a scientoligist or whatever that is that i believe in evolving from a monkey.

rsaccount, please use punctuation and capitalization and read over your post before actually putting it out for us to read. It almost made my eyes bleed.

I am withdrawing my earlier statement about not posting in this thread again; as you can tell because I posted this.

I believe in God. I am from a Christian (mostly) home and was raised to believe Christian beliefs. I confess I did not believe but then came to, and now am a devout Christian. I confess also that my beliefs may be wrong and that another religion could be right or that there simply is no God or gods at all.

There is one major thing that makes me believe in God. Creation. I love it when people say, "But then where did God come from?" To me that is about the stupidest thing that you could possibly say. Where did the matter that was originally here and start off the Big Bang come from if not from God or Sheba or Vishnu or some other being? (Personally I am pulling for the first one mentioned because it will suck for me if I am wrong.) I believe that God was here and started the Big Bang or perhaps just did whatever the heck He wanted and formed Earth and everything else.

There is no way to possibly prove any of this. I am taking this from what many of you believe, science. How can something smaller than the tip of a pencil suddenly explode? Then how did it decide that it wanted to create everything? It takes billions of years and then creates the stars, planets, and galaxies? Then it makes life suddenly pop up! Wow! What a theory.
Then there's the theory of God. He has been and always will be, He is the Alpha and the Omega so he was there the whole time. He says that he wants light, and there it is. I find this extraordinary also but much more believable. I am going with this one too.

« Last edited by norbie007 on Oct 23rd 2007 »

On 23-Oct-2007 norbie007 said:

rsaccount, please use punctuation and capitalization and read over your post before actually putting it out for us to read. It almost made my eyes bleed.

I am withdrawing my earlier statement about not posting in this thread again; as you can tell because I posted this.

I believe in God. I am from a Christian (mostly) home and was raised to believe Christian beliefs. I confess I did not believe but then came to, and now am a devout Christian. I confess also that my beliefs may be wrong and that another religion could be right or that there simply is no God or gods at all.

There is one major thing that makes me believe in God. Creation. I love it when people say, "But then where did God come from?" To me that is about the stupidest thing that you could possibly say. Where did the matter that was originally here and start off the Big Bang come from if not from God or Sheba or Vishnu or some other being? (Personally I am pulling for the first one mentioned because it will suck for me if I am wrong.) I believe that God was here and started the Big Bang or perhaps just did whatever the heck He wanted and formed Earth and everything else.

There is no way to possibly prove any of this. I am taking this from what many of you believe, science. How can something smaller than the tip of a pencil suddenly explode? Then how did it decide that it wanted to create everything? It takes billions of years and then creates the stars, planets, and galaxies? Then it makes life suddenly pop up! Wow! What a theory.
Then there's the theory of God. He has been and always will be, He is the Alpha and the Omega so he was there the whole time. He says that he wants light, and there it is. I find this extraordinary also but much more believable. I am going with this one too.

The thing about the theory that God has always existed and always will is that it makes him inherently beyond our realm of understanding. We, as human beings, cannot experience eternity in life, so we cannot fully comprehend it in life. When asked "how does an eternal God exist" all anybody can answer with is "He just does. Always did, always will." We can't explain His existence, all we can do is believe that He exists. Assuming he does, we can't logically comprehend Him. I respect your belief in Him, but as you've acknowledged, there is no proof, so it is purely faith based.

So, for the God theory to make sense, we have to basically accept that there are things at work which we cannot understand. Now, applying that same acceptance, does an eternal universe not seem possible? As in, our state of being - existence in general - has just always been there. Nothing created it. It just sorta was. Always has been, always will be. Eternal. Now, I cannot explain in any valid way how this could happen. But you cannot, any better, explain how an eternal God could exist. "What created the eternal universe" and "What created the eternal God" are essentially the same question, except attacking different theories. As long as neither of the questions have answers, the theories are on equal grounds. And if one question gets an answer, it is likely that the same answer can be applied to the other theory.

In my opinion, the issue of creation is equally questionable through religion or science.

On 23-Oct-2007 norbie007 said:

rsaccount, please use punctuation and capitalization and read over your post before actually putting it out for us to read. It almost made my eyes bleed.

I am withdrawing my earlier statement about not posting in this thread again; as you can tell because I posted this.

I believe in God. I am from a Christian (mostly) home and was raised to believe Christian beliefs. I confess I did not believe but then came to, and now am a devout Christian. I confess also that my beliefs may be wrong and that another religion could be right or that there simply is no God or gods at all.

There is one major thing that makes me believe in God. Creation. I love it when people say, "But then where did God come from?" To me that is about the stupidest thing that you could possibly say. Where did the matter that was originally here and start off the Big Bang come from if not from God or Sheba or Vishnu or some other being? (Personally I am pulling for the first one mentioned because it will suck for me if I am wrong.) I believe that God was here and started the Big Bang or perhaps just did whatever the heck He wanted and formed Earth and everything else.

There is no way to possibly prove any of this. I am taking this from what many of you believe, science. How can something smaller than the tip of a pencil suddenly explode? Then how did it decide that it wanted to create everything? It takes billions of years and then creates the stars, planets, and galaxies? Then it makes life suddenly pop up! Wow! What a theory.
Then there's the theory of God. He has been and always will be, He is the Alpha and the Omega so he was there the whole time. He says that he wants light, and there it is. I find this extraordinary also but much more believable. I am going with this one too.

To me both of those theorys seem about equal, the Big Bang one says that everything was created from somthing infinitely small and the God one saying that everything just appeared because God wanted it to. To be honest I'm not convinced by either of these points but I'm more scientific than I am religous so I'd tend to lean more towards the Big Bang theory if I had to chose.

Another reason I'm not too sure there is a God is that based on other stuff science is able to prove things more. Just an example but science shows on a basic level that if you mix A with B you get C, my point been that science in other aspects apart from the creation of life is able to explain a great deal and I don't think that religion does, so that it is more likely that the scientists may have got it right, or at any rate will get it right.

On 24-Oct-2007 super craig said:

To me both of those theorys seem about equal, the Big Bang one says that everything was created from somthing infinitely small and the God one saying that everything just appeared because God wanted it to. To be honest I'm not convinced by either of these points but I'm more scientific than I am religous so I'd tend to lean more towards the Big Bang theory if I had to chose.

Another reason I'm not too sure there is a God is that based on other stuff science is able to prove things more. Just an example but science shows on a basic level that if you mix A with B you get C, my point been that science in other aspects apart from the creation of life is able to explain a great deal and I don't think that religion does, so that it is more likely that the scientists may have got it right, or at any rate will get it right.

Well of course religion can't prove anything. Nothing against you. All of this was written thousands of years ago and now we rely on a bunch of people that think that they know what they are talking about. I can see sense in some of what the church says but even I don't have a clue where they are getting a lot of their theories.

My only point in this debate is that science isn't enough for me. I need more than just the Big Bang and the fact that it just happened. I have to believe that some sort of plan was put into this by something out there and I think that that something is God. One reason for this is creation and another is evolution. I don't see how a single tiny one celled organism suddenly wants to change and become two celled. And then eventually evolve into a fish then a giant reptile (dinosaur) and then shrink into a monkey and then a human. I can't believe that that was just random. I think their was a plan to all of this.