Originally posted by dunwichwitch
God doesn't exist "Out there" somewhere.

This is the mistake many people make, is worshipping it like it is high and mighty. It's nothing to be worshiped. You don't have to thank God for your being. God thanks you for being and teaching him all about this artwork that he made and is experiencing. I guess you can be thankful, but thank yourself because at your core, you are God. If you are not meant to experience what "God" is and what "God isn't, you won't know. You'll either believe or not believe. I can't show you spiritual enlightenment, dude. I can't show you a picture or a statistic, and all the sudden your mind ascends into eternal light and you go "Ahhhhh okay I get what you're taking about now!"
It's not for anybody to prove but yourself. The very fact that you are arguing at all means that you are searching. Once you have the eyes, you will see. Like Crazy Old Jesus said.

Don't ignore it because you've had a bad experience. This is what Orthodox religion has been trying to do for millenia... is get people to lose Faith, and euther blindly believe, or just reject it all together. It's about the Authorities having control. If you truly knew, you would have no need for others to tell you how to act towards one another.

That is just your opinion, what you call god is what I call life

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Creator.
He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Professor: So you believe in God?

Student: Absolutely, sir.

Professor: Is God good?

Student: Sure.

Professor: Is God all-powerful?

Student: Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then?

Student: (Student is silent.)

Professor: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?

Student: Yes.

Professor: Is Satan good?

Student: No.

Professor: Where does Satan come from?

Student: From...God...

Professor: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student: Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?

Student: Yes.

Professor: So who created evil?

Student: (Student does not answer)

Professor: Sickness, Immorality, Hatred, Ugliness, All
these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?

Student: Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them?

Student: (Student has no answer)

Professor: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God ?

Student: No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?

Student: No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God?
Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?

Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Professor: Yet, you still believe in Him?

Student: Yes.

Professor: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student: Nothing. I only have my Faith.

Professor: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student: No sir. There isn't. Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat.
We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student: You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light....But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed! Can you explain how?

Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor.
Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

Professor: (The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir?....Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain? heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....no one appears to have done so....So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir.

With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

Professor: I guess you'll have to take it on Faith, son.

Student: That is it sir.. The link between Man & the Creator is Faith.

The funny thing is, Im not religious, not a jesus freak....don't even believe in either concept.


Yet I KNOW there is a creator. How? Because I have touched it's face and been SUCKED back into this world.

Was it a hallucination? Perhaps that is an easy explenation.
But I know without a doubt that God exists. "Proof" is in the eyes of the beholder and when you shut yours, you block any truth from entering your life.

Deep down wether you admit it or not, you are searching for God and thus a post like this.

Some..ah, woops, a lot of individuals will always choose to believe in some sort of God that suits them.

Sun God, Christian God, Allah, etc.

Some just can't accept logic so they choose to follow something that simply isn't there.

Actually, you can prove there is a God, or.. a higher power of some sort. Its called irreducible complexity, aka intelligent design. My biology professor at a major university explained it using the flagellum tail as an example. It is so complex, it is proven to be impossible it could have simply evolved. Look it up

Originally posted by AlexG141989
I dont have a problem with people who believe in God, just when they claim that they can prove that he indeed does exist. Proving the existance of God cannot be done, there is a reason it is called faith. It is called faith because there is no factual evidence that points to it being a fact. That is why you have to have faith that he exists, you dont really KNOW that he exists, but you have faith that he does... I myself am an atheist, and have seen so many ridiculous posts by theists, who say they can "prove" the existance of "God using logic & critical thinking". We'll that particular thread had everything but logic & critical thinking, & the threadstarter ended up proving absolutely nothing. In another thread there was a theist who was trying to make the claim that the universe was created around human rules made so by God. I stopped reading his post after that, and as I expected his claim was quickly refuted by another poster.
You would change your mind in an instant if you stood in front of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You would say over and over......."My God. what
was i thinking?" The Lord Jesus Christ had unconditional love for you.
God Almighty, the spirit father also loves you unconditionally.
later

Originally posted by AlexG141989
I dont have a problem with people who believe in God, just when they claim that they can prove that he indeed does exist. Proving the existance of God cannot be done, there is a reason it is called faith. It is called faith because there is no factual evidence that points to it being a fact. That is why you have to have faith that he exists, you dont really KNOW that he exists, but you have faith that he does... I myself am an atheist, and have seen so many ridiculous posts by theists, who say they can "prove" the existance of "God using logic & critical thinking". We'll that particular thread had everything but logic & critical thinking, & the threadstarter ended up proving absolutely nothing. In another thread there was a theist who was trying to make the claim that the universe was created around human rules made so by God. I stopped reading his post after that, and as I expected his claim was quickly refuted by another poster.

later

We just had a thread like this a couple days ago, are you serious? Why are you posting this...

Well I can't get my mind around the perfectly balanced ecosystem we call earth being just an accident...

Prove to the world that the whole earth thing was an accident is the real challenge...

Originally posted by aLinkToThePast

Originally posted by AlexG141989
I dont have a problem with people who believe in God, just when they claim that they can prove that he indeed does exist. Proving the existance of God cannot be done, there is a reason it is called faith. It is called faith because there is no factual evidence that points to it being a fact. That is why you have to have faith that he exists, you dont really KNOW that he exists, but you have faith that he does... I myself am an atheist, and have seen so many ridiculous posts by theists, who say they can "prove" the existance of "God using logic & critical thinking". We'll that particular thread had everything but logic & critical thinking, & the threadstarter ended up proving absolutely nothing. In another thread there was a theist who was trying to make the claim that the universe was created around human rules made so by God. I stopped reading his post after that, and as I expected his claim was quickly refuted by another poster.

later

We just had a thread like this a couple days ago, are you serious? Why are you posting this...

Ocarina Of Time was MUCH BETTER... but I haven't been on here much lately so I didn't know

Originally posted by Perplexed
Well I can't get my mind around the perfectly balanced ecosystem we call earth being just an accident...

Prove to the world that the whole earth thing was an accident is the real challenge...

We'll if you think getting your mind around that is hard, try getting ya mind around some big white haired dude in the sky creating the universe in seven days. That shouldn't be any easier to swallow than the big bang theory is.

first thing i noticed was there were some things that were true all over the planet, without fail. aside from the more obvious scientific principles like gravity, there were social and familal norms, everywhere. when i compared it to nature, i noticed the norms in nature were programmed in by default (science calls this instinct but i view it more like biological computer programming). however, in human cultures, it was alot more random. i was amazed to find any cohesive norm had managed to enter the picture -- BUT IT DID! not just in western culture, but every culture, all the way back in human civilzation to the earliest written texts. this thread of truth had wound itself around and threw our historical texts for thousands of years.

some of the ideas were common sense, such as be kind, don't steal, etc. others were more specific - the power of positive thinking/faith. and yet more were extremely esoteric - visions/astral projections. it was hard to ignore because it kept coming up, across religions, eastern, western, didn't matter.

so the next step was to research the historicity of the texts themselves. and that's where it really got interesting. i'd elaborate but this post would spill over into another and another (and probably 5 more), just to list all the remarkable "norms" or connected dots i found. suffice it to say, if you really want to know, you'll find the answers. if you don't want to know, you won't, that is, conceivably. i mean, stranger things have happened.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Actually, you can prove there is a God, or.. a higher power of some sort. Its called irreducible complexity, aka intelligent design. My biology professor at a major university explained it using the flagellum tail as an example. It is so complex, it is proven to be impossible it could have simply evolved. Look it up

Yes I've heard arguments for intelligent design. I remember hearing Dr. Dwayne Dier making an argument for intelligent design using a Boeing 47 (did I spell that right???) as an example. Although, this still doesn't actually prove God. It makes sence, it really does but lets say it is proof. If it is proof, that does not neccesarily make it proof of "God's" existance. That doesn't make it proof that the God you all worship to exists. It makes it proof that we were made. but by WHO??? your guess is as good as mine. It could've been an alien race of people. I have a hard time believing it was God, because if this ONE man can create suns hundreds of times bigger than our sun, with heat so hot that it burns in an ultra violet light. If this ONE man can create galaxies that span hundreds of light years across, IF this one man can create a universe that is seemingly endless. What in the world would he gain from having some little ants (humans) from a grain of sand (earth) worshiping him???

[edit on 7-8-2008 by AlexG141989]

Originally posted by undo
first thing i noticed was there were some things that were true all over the planet, without fail. aside from the more obvious scientific principles like gravity, there were social and familal norms, everywhere. when i compared it to nature, i noticed the norms in nature were programmed in by default (science calls this instinct but i view it more like biological computer programming). however, in human cultures, it was alot more random. i was amazed to find any cohesive norm had managed to enter the picture -- BUT IT DID! not just in western culture, but every culture, all the way back in human civilzation to the earliest written texts. this thread of truth had wound itself around and threw our historical texts for thousands of years.

some of the ideas were common sense, such as be kind, don't steal, etc. others were more specific - the power of positive thinking/faith. and yet more were extremely esoteric - visions/astral projections. it was hard to ignore because it kept coming up, across religions, eastern, western, didn't matter.

so the next step was to research the historicity of the texts themselves. and that's where it really got interesting. i'd elaborate but this post would spill over into another and another (and probably 5 more), just to list all the remarkable "norms" or connected dots i found. suffice it to say, if you really want to know, you'll find the answers. if you don't want to know, you won't, that is, conceivably. i mean, stranger things have happened.

huh???