How can you NOT believe in God?

Seriously folks. Maybe you don't believe in God, but how can you deny the existence of some higher being? The entire universe points toward the intervention of the divine.

Are you people saying that there is no God? Do you know this? Because that is an absolute statement. Do you have absolute knowledge? No? Then you fail to convince me of the lack of a God.

Let's say that we know 1% of all knowledge in the entire universe. (In reality, it is probably much less than that.) Is it possible, that in the knowledge that we have not come across, there is ample evidence that God does exist?

And what of souls? Do you believe in spirits? That spark of life in every person, is it real?What happens when we die? Heaven and hell, do they exist, or are they some imaginary realms used to teach children to be good?

And we come to a big point. How are we here? How has life come so far? How was it started in the first place? Big Bang? Evolution? You gotta be kidding me.

In closing, I can't prove that there is nor isn't a God. But the fact that nature and life itself points toward the divine makes me think that something bigger is out there.

Who is your target audience? Atheists, polytheists, or monotheists who don't believe in a hebrew diety?

Originally posted by Nostradamouse
Seriously folks. Maybe you don't believe in God, but how can you deny the existence of some higher being?

Why don't you ask the Buddhists? They have a perfectly workable cosmology that doesn't have a God in it at all.

My beliefs have recently leaned more towards a higher conciousness of which we are all a part of. To me, this conciousness did not create life on Earth so that life would worship and pay tribute to it in order to get to heaven, or face eternity in hell.

Its not so much that I dont believe in God (that is the name I will to use to describe my beliefs for this thread), but that I dont believe in organized religion or its interpretation of God.

How can I not believe? Because there is absolutely no empirical evidence for a deity whatsoever. The universe needs no creator, it has always existed.

The universe is a mysterious and wonderful place, no sky fairy necessary for me to appreciate it. In fact, not believing in god makes it even more wonderful for me.

Originally posted by Nostradamouse
The entire universe points toward the intervention of the divine.

How so?

Are you people saying that there is no God? Do you know this? Because that is an absolute statement. Do you have absolute knowledge? No? Then you fail to convince me of the lack of a God.

Why should there be a god? god is an unnecessary paramater in my model of the universe that i will add when i see fit, meaning whenever i find concrete evidence that this being exists. Until then I won't bother believing in something unuseful.

Let's say that we know 1% of all knowledge in the entire universe. (In reality, it is probably much less than that.) Is it possible, that in the knowledge that we have not come across, there is ample evidence that God does exist?

But there is no evidence that this evidence exists. I will accept that a higher being exists when i see this evidence, not before.

And what of souls? Do you believe in spirits? That spark of life in every person, is it real?

While I am not convinced that the soul exists I'll admit there's more evidence for the soul than for god (none for god actually).

The problem I have with the soul is that if humans have one, I see no reason why other species should not have one, since all life is related and evolved from a common ancestor.

What happens when we die?

There are multiple possibities to take into account :

- Oblivion
- Reincarnation
- Spirit World
- etc

No one knows, since no one comes back, as a biologist once said "Death is the black hole of biology".

Heaven and hell, do they exist, or are they some imaginary realms used to teach children to be good?

Imaginary, childish ideas, invented by people of the bronze age to try to give a reason to it all.

How are we here? How has life come so far? How was it started in the first place?

abiogenesis, followed by more than 3 billion years of evolution.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by DarkSide]

As I've said in the past, the biggest problem with trying to debate the possible existence of "God" is a nearly total inability to define the concept enough to reasonably debate it. I have yet to find anyone who can define God adequately enough to avoid built-in paradoxes and contradictions which bring any reasonable discussion to a screeching halt.

Top of the list is trying to establish that God is an omnipotent entity, yet is still motivated for some reason to do things. Certainly, a truly omnipotent entity would have no logical reason to need or want anything, so exactly why would it do things like create the universe, separate light from dark, create man, etc.? Doesn't make any sense. Any time something moves in the universe there is the implication that it was not where it was supposed to be in the first place. That it was somehow moved or removed from its perfect state. Why would an omnipotent being need to change or move anything?

That little contradiction is just for starters. Good luck with figuring out a workable notion of "free will" in a predetermined universe.

But, hey, if somebody out there has a good, workable, non-contradictory definition of God that they'd like to present, I'd love to see it.

I like taffy!

~~~~

Why must one debate their beliefs with others? You end up chasing your own tail as well as stepping on others beliefs and faiths. It is what it is. I do not know what that is. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Is there a God, a supreme being? I haven't a clue. Agnostic. But I never feel the need to bring this up to those who do not wish to hear it.

Time is short. I choose to live instead of worry about if there is an afterlife or not and whether or not I am worthy of being there.


And what has been predetermined?

I am being controlled as I type this?




[edit on 8/1/2007 by bobafett1972]

Nostradamouse, who are you to assume that every single person here doesn't believe in God? Not saying that I believe in a Christian diety (though I accept the possibility of some sort of higher power)... but how do you know what everyone here believes with regard to spirituality?

Also, what part of "people are different" don't you understand? That includes their beliefs. So it's easy to understand how someone can believe something entirely different from you. They just do. Accept it. Accepting that doesn't mean you have to believe what they do - just that you have to accept that it's their right to believe what they want.

There's nothing wrong with discussing beliefs, but when you jump head-first into a place and say "How can you people not believe this...?" that is just asking for trouble. That question, in and of itself, will surely offend someone. First, it offends the people who believe differently and second, it offends the people who believe the same as you, because you were making assumptions that they didn't believe what you did.

You may wish to rephrase your post.

I feel best suited to answering this question, as i have experienced both sides of the coin. I was a firm believer that God was simply the creation of religions, a method of controlling people, up until a couple of years ago (20 now). I took this stance, because thats what science dictated to be true.. there was no need for a "God" or higher power, because reality could be explained by the Big Bang and Evolution.

So what changed? Nothing. I just realised that i wasn't actually thinking about what i was saying..

There are simple contradictions and holes in the theories of evolution and the big bang. The more i looked, the more overwhelming the evidence became..

And after a year or two of pondering, learning some more information, i finally concluded my own personal philosophy, of which i believe to be as close to the truth as possible. I now accept that all of reality is consciousness. There is nothing outside of consciousness, it is the only way of explaining existence itself. "God" is merely the term to describe the total sum of all consciousness.. so technically everything is God.

I can understand why people don't believe in a concept of God..

a) There is no response when asked. Prayers not answered.
b) No measurable evidence of God
c) Scientific theories which put forward a more convincing argument

Its not like the evidence isn't there.. its just no one has put together a complete theory of everything, explaining why we are here (humans), and what everythings about. You can get VERY close to the truth just by using the internet, but even then, you need to be able to piece it together yourself.

The scientific "hands on" approach is always going to be the victor, until one has an epiphany, sees something undeniable to change their perspective.. or begins to experiement with altered states of consciousness.

Or, if we harmonized science and spirituality.. i hope that happens in my lifetime

I believe that religion in the present day, and in the past few centuries is far more geared towards maintaining power and controlling the populace rather than spreading any sort of faith.

I was brought up in a Catholic household, with Seven Day Adventist and Methodist relatives, so i had a fair whack of Christianity thrown at me. Up to adolescence i believed, you could say, but when i started to gain a bit of independence i realized that i had no faith whatsoever in their God. Why should I?

My only beliefs that go anywhere near religion is that possibly, tens of thousands of years ago, our planet was visited by another race that gave humanoids evolution a little shove. Whether they are still here now, i am not to say. I do believe, however, that they are responsible for some of the great races, such as Maya, Egyptians etc.

That clash too much with your religious beliefs? Tough. I can't really stop you or anyone else from being brainwashed to follow a deity that doesn't exist, but i can certainly save myself.

My stance on life is that i can lead a good, moral life without doing it for a God. There is no such thing as living a 'Christian' lifestyle, it is simply being a good person.

Originally posted by bobafett1972
And what has been predetermined? I am being controlled as I type this?

Either God is omnipotent, and controls everything in the universe, or he/it doesn't. There's no middle ground. There's no "granting" you power to choose, particularly if everything in the universe that led up to you making the decision has already been controlled and planned. Otherwise, God is giving you power over him. God has to react to what you do. Does that seem right? Of course not. It makes no sense in any possible rational, logical framework.

Like I said, I've never heard or read a definition of God that is functional for rational discourse. And if you can't define the concepts from the get-go, any argument or conversation about it is doomed to be pointless.

Being raised in a Christian family, my parents always instilled deep religious values in me from birth. I don't need or want scientific evidence of god. I have faith that he exists and is watching over my family and I. I don't go around trying to change people's minds, because to be honest I do not really care if you have the same faith as me or not.

the funny about god and satan is that for some reason I think these two and basically just sit around playing cards and wait for someone to do something stupid and then say and yell at them and correct them like immigrants at a soccer game.

Originally posted by JBurns
Being raised in a Christian family, my parents always instilled deep religious values in me from birth. I don't need or want scientific evidence of god. I have faith that he exists and is watching over my family and I. I don't go around trying to change people's minds, because to be honest I do not really care if you have the same faith as me or not.

Yeah, I like that attitude. I have no problem with anyone's beliefs. I, as well as many others, just dislike people being intrusive with their beliefs.

The argument "look around everything is surely designed!" is not so good.

Let's see, some 4000 years ago, rain, thunder, earthquakes were all caused by God(s) ! Because surely NO other explaination existed!

Look, just because things apear to be "intelligently designed" at this moment does not mean they are, sure feel free to put forward theories with proof as to why things are intelligently designed.

Keep in mind that disproving evolution or other scientific theories does NOT prove your point!

Well, all the best to you.

How can I not belive in God...

Well, quite frankly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes more sense from a scientific point of view.

www.venganza.org...

i guess youd have to ask if its a christian , muslim or hindu god ,.'?
'
but im asuming your talking about the judeo/christian all seeing ,all hearing, all doing god ,
who needs help in all his/her deeds. then no , you hit the jackpot,


its a sundial get over it ,


i mean, i do hope that christian people read something else too then just the bible.

im not questioning your faith in your belif , just your book of refference and the way its been indoctrinated into our society ,

question ,
if the bible is true, shouldent we eat the apple and go against gods word just like our forfathers ?,

or should we just be ignorant in eden and follow our master and go agains our forfathers.

, .,

but i see what your getting at , but i call that/it a whole , not god..

thermic laws, static limit, rock, happy, jetengien, maths , biology, random, sun, dust, blueprint, katamari, beer, universal health care, simultaneity principle, collective, self hypnos,

guess i just ran out of ideas but i hope you see what im getting at ,

but if you mean god as in father figure then i guess we´ve all had one at some point in life ,

Originally posted by bobafett1972


Why must one debate their beliefs with others? You end up chasing your own tail as well as stepping on others beliefs and faiths. It is what it is. I do not know what that is. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? Is there a God, a supreme being? I haven't a clue. Agnostic. But I never feel the need to bring this up to those who do not wish to hear it.

Time is short. I choose to live instead of worry about if there is an afterlife or not and whether or not I am worthy of being there.



[edit on 8/1/2007 by bobafett1972]

*applause*
well said. My sentiments EXACTLY!
thank you for articulating that so well.

Do we really need this thread when there is already a 13-page thread called How can you honestly believe in God? ?

There are also probably several better places for it than the paranormal forum.