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

I'll keep it sweet, sweaty, and simple.

I believe in God, I believe in a divine being.

I've read into other religions, not because I want to believe or such, but I always think it's good to have a good understanding of someone else's beliefs and it's not bad for the mind.

At the moment, you may consider me a curious Christian or possibly a Plurist.

That's the answer I will give.

Alright, here goes my argument. Simply put, I am a man of science and do not believe in intelligent design. I believe, as Darwin did, that organisms adapt depending on their environment to give themselves the best chance of survival, early humans were not as strong as the animals they had to hunt, so decided for brains over brawns, invented technology to kill and eat, shelter and protect. They advanced to the point of building civilization and creating cities and thinkers.

That last part is the only reason we are having this discussion, that man wondered at his origins. Christians and just about every other Creationist faith believe God (Allah, whatever) made us and everything with a purpose, an ultimate goal in mind. If that's true, then why? Why did he do it? What design? What purpose? To prove He's all powerful? I don't see Him giving us much guidance to do whatever He wanted us to. The Native Americans believed that all life comes from the Earth; they worship the Sun and animals around them as their gods. I think this is a pretty good take on religion, for where would we be had the sun not come into existence? What would we eat, if not the animals around us? What would we build, if not for the trees and iron in the soil? %u2018Course in their beliefs, everything was personified, but that%u2019s beside the point.

Then there are the outliers who believe in other things, Zachariah Stichen believes god(s) were aliens who needed resources to fuel their dieing world, and happened upon Earth, and uplifted us to sentience, in return, we mined the gold of our planet to help them regain their atmosphere or something. Explains the human fetish with gold, but leaves other questions unanswered. And their genetic experiments explain some myths such as dwarves or centaurs, but again the why comes in. Why not mine it themselves?

Point is, I don't think anything powerful enough to create us would need to, or have any real reason for doing so. It is because of the natural world around us that we live as we do and are who we are.

I was a part of another debate over this same subject on this site a-while back.

The way that debate ended, and a few other things that I've experienced since then has given me this ideology:

You can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't. You can't prove anything in the universe, really. So, the arguments relating to God's existence are pointless. People will believe what they want to believe.

Spoiler:

« Last edited by the dawn of the gamers on Jan 17th 2012 »

Dear guy in oaklin: Yes people who haven't heard will go to the bad place. Whose fault is it? Ours. Why? Because we made the horrible mistake of not telling thyem about God,the one who created the world, created you! He cared enough to send His ONLY son down to earth to just so He can die... For us. Some people turn away from the thought of this... But If He sees and cares for evry bird that falls from its nest, He certainly cares about us. He told Adam to rule over the animals. And for those of you who think its all Eve's fault, go back to Genesis, and read CAREFULLY! It says, And she turned and gave it to Adam, who was with her. He could have stopped her. But he didn't. He just stood there, watching as his fiance, along with himself, were decieved by the devil himself. I believe in God.
Oh, and a miracle: I was coming home from school today, and I went into this really serious coughing fit. It got to where, I was wheezing, and sneezing, and couldn't breathe. At all. I was taking in deep breaths, and my Grandma was speeding over to my house where I had forgotten my medicine. I was looking for my inhaler, which usually didn't take any effect, and praying the same thing over and over. "Dear Jesus, Help me to breathe. Help me to breathe." I was freaking out. And guess what? the most wonderful thing happened. It worked. My inhaler actually worked for once. I went from about to pass out to perfect. In a split second. It was amazing. Thankyou, God!

the dawn of the gamers said:

I was a part of another debate over this same subject on this site a-while back.

The way that debate ended, and a few other things that I've experienced since then has given me this theology:

You can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't. You can't prove anything in the universe, really. So, the arguments relating to God's existence are pointless. People will believe what they want to believe.

A person making a positive claim has to provide evidence for his/her claim, the other does not have to debunk the claim.

We can prove alot of things in the universe like general relativity , special relativity , the helicentric theory etc

I'll go into a depth response when I have the time , and when someone puts forward a better argument :/.

AbigailShift said:

Dear guy in oaklin: Yes people who haven't heard will go to the bad place. Whose fault is it? Ours. Why? Because we made the horrible mistake of not telling thyem about God,the one who created the world, created you!

I'm a Christian too (probably a different denomination than you), but it isn't only our fault. It is also the fault of the person who actually went to Hell, if not more-so. Chances are, that person not only heard about Jesus Christ, but even visited a church for a friend. That person also probably kept arguing against the religion in one form or another.

AbigailShift said:

Oh, and a miracle: I was coming home from school today, and I went into this really serious coughing fit. It got to where, I was wheezing, and sneezing, and couldn't breathe. At all. I was taking in deep breaths, and my Grandma was speeding over to my house where I had forgotten my medicine. I was looking for my inhaler, which usually didn't take any effect, and praying the same thing over and over. "Dear Jesus, Help me to breathe. Help me to breathe." I was freaking out. And guess what? the most wonderful thing happened. It worked. My inhaler actually worked for once. I went from about to pass out to perfect. In a split second. It was amazing. Thankyou, God!

That's not a miracle, inhalers are designed to help you breathe when you physically can't. I'm not saying that God is incapable of miracles, I'm just saying that many insignificant things get confused with miracles.

Take for example: a man is walking down the street, he'd been summoned to court by his landlord for not being able to pay his bills. The man prays for money. When he gets to the street corner, he notices a folded up piece of paper on the road beside him. His curiosity peaked, he picked it up. It turned out to be four, wadded up, 100 dollar bills. It wasn't enough to relieve him of his debt, but it was enough to pay on it. He would not loose his home that day. He believed it was a miracle.

Was it a miracle? No. A few thieves had just robbed a bank at the end of the street and accidentally dropped those 100 dollar bills.

A true miracle would be something like: a ship is crossing the ocean when it suddenly comes into the path of a storm. There are hundreds of people on board, and the storm is throwing the ship around like it's nothing. For several hours the ship was tossed left and right. Another ship was in that storm as well. They had no visual of each other, because they couldn't see anything. In the next instant, they collided. The two ships were torn apart. No deaths occurred, though some people were seriously injured.

A miracle? Yes. In any normal circumstance, everyone on board those vessels would be dead. If that really happened, then I believe that God would have been watching over them. Oh... wait, something very similar did happen, it happened to the Apostle Paul. There weren't two ships, but there was a storm, and the sailors were surprised that they survived it.

Just saying, people are over-dramatic in this century. In the Bible, miracles were things like the healing of a blind person, or of a cripple, the resurrection of someone dead, or the power of someone's faith, etc.

dx_hbk said:

the dawn of the gamers said:

I was a part of another debate over this same subject on this site a-while back.

The way that debate ended, and a few other things that I've experienced since then has given me this ideology:

You can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't. You can't prove anything in the universe, really. So, the arguments relating to God's existence are pointless. People will believe what they want to believe.

A person making a positive claim has to provide evidence for his/her claim, the other does not have to debunk the claim.

Yes, but proof is rarely (and by rarely, I mean close to never) provided. Perhaps my previous statement regarding not being able to prove anything in the universe was a bit of hyperbole, I should learn not to do that.

dx_hbk said:

We can prove alot of things in the universe like general relativity , special relativity , the helicentric theory etc

Because I know very, very little about physics, I'm not going to argue with you. That is not something in which I am educated, perhaps someone who shares a similar ideology to my own will be kind enough to say something in that regard.

the dawn of the gamers said:

AbigailShift said:

Dear guy in oaklin: Yes people who haven't heard will go to the bad place. Whose fault is it? Ours. Why? Because we made the horrible mistake of not telling thyem about God,the one who created the world, created you!

I'm a Christian too (probably a different denomination than you), but it isn't only our fault. It is also the fault of the person who actually went to Hell, if not more-so. Chances are, that person not only heard about Jesus Christ, but even visited a church for a friend. That person also probably kept arguing against the religion in one form or another.

That's not very fair. Christianity may be one of the larger religions, but you can't just assume everyone has heard of it. With that logic, a Muslim who died at the age of eight would go to hell, and they would have no one to blame but themselves, because they weren't old enough to learn about different religions. I'm sure there are even full-grown adults in third-world countries that have never heard of Jesus. Even if they have heard of Christianity, I think they have more pressing matters to attend to than stopping by a library to read up on some religion they just heard about.

the dawn of the gamers said:

AbigailShift said:

Oh, and a miracle: I was coming home from school today, and I went into this really serious coughing fit. It got to where, I was wheezing, and sneezing, and couldn't breathe. At all. I was taking in deep breaths, and my Grandma was speeding over to my house where I had forgotten my medicine. I was looking for my inhaler, which usually didn't take any effect, and praying the same thing over and over. "Dear Jesus, Help me to breathe. Help me to breathe." I was freaking out. And guess what? the most wonderful thing happened. It worked. My inhaler actually worked for once. I went from about to pass out to perfect. In a split second. It was amazing. Thankyou, God!

That's not a miracle, inhalers are designed to help you breathe when you physically can't. I'm not saying that God is incapable of miracles, I'm just saying that many insignificant things get confused with miracles.

Take for example: a man is walking down the street, he'd been summoned to court by his landlord for not being able to pay his bills. The man prays for money. When he gets to the street corner, he notices a folded up piece of paper on the road beside him. His curiosity peaked, he picked it up. It turned out to be four, wadded up, 100 dollar bills. It wasn't enough to relieve him of his debt, but it was enough to pay on it. He would not loose his home that day. He believed it was a miracle.

Was it a miracle? No. A few thieves had just robbed a bank at the end of the street and accidentally dropped those 100 dollar bills.

That's a terrible example. That kind of thing doesn't happen very often, and for him it was a miracle. Now, if he had asked for a drink, and the person he asked handed him a cup and told him to go pray for rain, and the thirsty man did so, and it just so happened to start raining, that would be a better example.

the dawn of the gamers said:

A true miracle would be something like: a ship is crossing the ocean when it suddenly comes into the path of a storm. There are hundreds of people on board, and the storm is throwing the ship around like it's nothing. For several hours the ship was tossed left and right. Another ship was in that storm as well. They had no visual of each other, because they couldn't see anything. In the next instant, they collided. The two ships were torn apart. No deaths occurred, though some people were seriously injured.

A miracle? Yes. In any normal circumstance, everyone on board those vessels would be dead. If that really happened, then I believe that God would have been watching over them. Oh... wait, something very similar did happen, it happened to the Apostle Paul. There weren't two ships, but there was a storm, and the sailors were surprised that they survived it.

Just a couple things here. First, if "God" was watching over them, why did the ships collide at all? Surely if an omnipotent being was watching over them, he could have prevented the ships from crashing, thus sparing the passengers injury? In fact, if he's omnipotent, why didn't he stop the ships from going into the storm, or clear the storm away?

Second, if there's one thing I hate, it's when people try to use stories from the Bible like they're fact. You have no proof of Paul even running into the aforementioned storm, and therefore can't say that it actually did happen.

On a side note, people survive storms all the time. Just because the sailors were surprised by it doesn't make it a miracle.

Yes, but proof is rarely (and by rarely, I mean close to never) provided.

When you are told to accept something as "fact" then you should have evidence backinig up your claim. Proof is always reqiered and has been provided, when a new thoery is propogated I.E Evolution.

Keep forgetting about this place...

So I do not believe in God I believe in science. I do not think some all powerful being created everything, from what the Bible and any other Holy Book there are many holes in it. Many things that science has found that makes God seem less and less real. Something of a fairy tail like dragons, though one can see why people would believe in a "God". Completely unreasonable and has been defeated by science many times.

For instance science has a pretty clear line of evolution for mankind, all that is missing is one stage (the missing link) and yet the bible does not mention any of this but states that some omnipotent being created man. Reasonably science has won on man's creation as the Bible seems to leave out the God created mankind by changing us every few hundred years.

Sure there could be a God but clearly science is the way to go.

I believe in the astral realm and spirit science. You see, lucid dreams are basicly like astral projections. Astral projections are when you leave your body and can do--well, practically anything. I've had an astral projection and can say for myself I have proof to myself. Of course, there could be a deeper meaning than what I say. In fact, Spirit Science states there's no god but there is an afterlife in the astral realm which gives people the idea of heaven and hell because if they are fearful of what they've done they go to hell and if they have no fears they go to heaven. It's basicly where those concepts came from.
I'm not going to say that anyone is wrong about their religion though. I could be wrong.

There are people out there who claim to believe in God and even show up in church but are actually not true followers. As for me, I am trying hard to follow His lead. I have had close calls in my life, but I've never had a near-death experience. One time, I ended up skidding badly on the ice/snow. I was flipped around 180 degrees. There was an oncoming pickup truck. Somehow, I ended up turning my car around and getting home safely. That's when I panicked. I realized I had come close to dying...and I realized that God had brought me safely home.

God also put you in the headlights

Purrloin said:

There are people out there who claim to believe in God and even show up in church but are actually not true followers. As for me, I am trying hard to follow His lead. I have had close calls in my life, but I've never had a near-death experience. One time, I ended up skidding badly on the ice/snow. I was flipped around 180 degrees. There was an oncoming pickup truck. Somehow, I ended up turning my car around and getting home safely. That's when I panicked. I realized I had come close to dying...and I realized that God had brought me safely home.

CRAZY CHEATS said:

God also put you in the headlights

and the ice on the road.

You might want to look over your post too.

"Never had a near death experience" .... "I realised I had come close to dying"

Coming close to dying = near death experience. Both phrases do mean the same thing after all.

But, aside from that - not once have you given anyone here a single point on which a proper dicussion can continue on. You give us nothing but conjecture.

Next time, if you want to delve into Debate & Discussion - try putting forward something that can be debated or discussed.

exploding typhoon said:

That's not very fair. Christianity may be one of the larger religions, but you can't just assume everyone has heard of it. With that logic, a Muslim who died at the age of eight would go to hell, and they would have no one to blame but themselves, because they weren't old enough to learn about different religions. I'm sure there are even full-grown adults in third-world countries that have never heard of Jesus. Even if they have heard of Christianity, I think they have more pressing matters to attend to than stopping by a library to read up on some religion they just heard about.

I didn't assume that everyone had heard of it. The word "probably" was found in my post. I'm assuming that, in well-developed societies, most people have heard of Christianity in one way or another. Though, I must admit that I am no longer apart of that religion.

exploding typhoon said:

That's a terrible example. That kind of thing doesn't happen very often, and for him it was a miracle.

That exact thing happens a lot more often than you might imagine.

exploding typhoon said:

Just a couple things here. First, if "God" was watching over them, why did the ships collide at all? Surely if an omnipotent being was watching over them, he could have prevented the ships from crashing, thus sparing the passengers injury? In fact, if he's omnipotent, why didn't he stop the ships from going into the storm, or clear the storm away?

This is like asking the famous question, "If God is an omnipotent being, can he not make a rock so heavy that He, Himself, cannot lift it?" The answer is simply that God does what it is in His nature to do. It is not His nature to make such a heavy rock, and it is not in His nature to clear away massive storms.

Ever hear of being happy for what you've got? I'm sure that the people upon those vessels were happy to be alive.

exploding typhoon said:

Second, if there's one thing I hate, it's when people try to use stories from the Bible like they're fact. You have no proof of Paul even running into the aforementioned storm, and therefore can't say that it actually did happen.

I'm sorry. Let me explain.

I was one Christian arguing a point to another Christian. As far as we were concerned, that story was history. If I had been arguing against a skeptic, I would have been less likely to use a story from the Bible.

If there's one thing I hate, it's when people argue outside of the arguments original context.

exploding typhoon said:

On a side note, people survive storms all the time. Just because the sailors were surprised by it doesn't make it a miracle.

People do survive storms all the time. Great observation.

My statement was that everyone on board survived a terrible, terrible storm. Which rarely happens.

dx_hbk said:

Yes, but proof is rarely (and by rarely, I mean close to never) provided.

When you are told to accept something as "fact" then you should have evidence backinig up your claim. Proof is always reqiered and has been provided, when a new thoery is propogated I.E Evolution.

I would prefer not to start arguing about Evolution. But proof is something that cannot always be relied upon, and that is all I was trying to say.

Perhaps I should elaborate a bit more on my actual ideology, as that seems to be something a lot of people here are doing.

I'm not a Creationist. Nor am I an Evolutionist. I do believe in a higher power, but I do not necessarily believe said power to be God. For all I know, it could simply be a force which guides the universe. Or it could be another race of humanoids hiding out in the trillions of celestial bodies that we have never seen.

I see problems within Evolution and within Creationism. I do not think either will ever be proven, and I do not think either will ever be dis-proven. But who's to say we won't all be apologizing to an obscure group of people that worship some deity of which we have never heard?

« Last edited by the dawn of the gamers on Jan 17th 2012 »

XFeralTSDX said:

I believe in the astral realm and spirit science. You see, lucid dreams are basicly like astral projections. Astral projections are when you leave your body and can do--well, practically anything.

Back that up.

I've had an astral projection and can say for myself I have proof to myself. Of course, there could be a deeper meaning than what I say. In fact, Spirit Science states there's no god but there is an afterlife in the astral realm which gives people the idea of heaven and hell because if they are fearful of what they've done they go to hell and if they have no fears they go to heaven. It's basicly where those concepts came from.
I'm not going to say that anyone is wrong about their religion though. I could be wrong.

Back those "facts" up please.

the dawn of the gamers said:

But who's to say we won't all be apologizing to an obscure group of people that worship some deity of which we have never heard?

That's all there is to say on that matter.

sphynxx said:

the dawn of the gamers said:

But who's to say we won't all be apologizing to an obscure group of people that worship some deity of which we have never heard?

-snip-

That's all there is to say on that matter.

I can't argue with such profound evidence. xD

« Last edited by the dawn of the gamers on Jan 17th 2012 »

I believe there is only one god, ALLAH

shahinmaster10 said:

I believe there is only one god, ALLAH

Hello shahinmaster10 and welcome to the site. Just a few things you should know first. Debate and Discussion operates a little differently to the rest of the site, being much more focussed on serious issues and reasoned debate and as such has a higher demand for post quality. For example in this case we really want to know not only what you believe but why you hold such a belief etc, when you post it must add something meaningful to the discussion. Please read our rules to get started http://forums.supercheats.c...c=100690

K sorry

Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me ? the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love ? He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us ? nature did it all ? not the gods of the religions. - Thomas Edison

That quote sums up my beliefs. Of course, there are a lot of unanswered questions for scientists. The faint young sun paradox, how the inner solar system formed, what holds galaxies together, why the universe's expansion is accelerating and what causes it, etc. "God did it all" is an answer that doesn't mean anything to me.