To Believe Or Not To Believe That Is The Question

I'm starting this topic as a splinter topic to the Jesus vs Evolution thread.

Many people on this forum and in other places use their dislike of religious orders and the teachings thereof as a basis for their disbelief in a supreme divine entity (commonly referred to as god).

However as of yet I have not seen a solid argument as to why a god being does not exist, I have seen plenty of arguments to support the idea that mainstream religions are effectively a manipulative force used to control the masses, and to be fair Ive seen counter arguments for that as well.

This thread is not about quoting the bible to prove your faith, please don't do it, once again this is not about religion its about belief in the existence of god or disbelief as the case maybe.

So ATS why do you believe in god / don't believe in god, and tell us what bought you to that conclusion.

you can believe whatever you want, but that's not the end of the story. you can also believe it whenever you want. it always gives me a chuckle when people start talking about how they believe in things in any sort of permenant sense.

i believe in god whenever i'm told to. and i believe in atheism whenver i'm told to. in fact, whenver i see anything remotely interesting on the internet or in a movie i believe that too. after a while i started noticing a pattern. see how smart i am? all it takes is someone with an iq above 120 or so to put on a decent presentation with a few slides and a couple of good jokes and i'll believe it. short as it may last.

i think it's much more realistic to believe in whatever rubs your mental buttons at the time. just watch people that pretend to know what's going on and all the headaches that ensue.

I think that was a really good reply have a star.

However honestly the reason I asked people not to quote the bible, is because people do indeed have fixed or long term beliefs that cannot be proven one way or another, and yet both sides of the argument are willing to claim absolute authority on this issue.

What I want to know is simply why ? Why do you take your belief, whether there is a god or not and try and cement it into fact.

In my opinion I think there is evidence to suggest a god being of sorts, that doesn't mean I need to get on my knees and start worshiping it, anymore than I should worship Ronald McDonald for his tasty artery clogging treats.

I don't want to taint the discussion this early on by making it about my beliefs I would like to hear from more people why they fall on one side of the fence or the other, and I sincerely thank you for your frank appraisal of the situation as you see it.

I cannot hold the mind of everyone neither would I have to influence what other people believe. But I have this strong testimony that there is a God, the Supreme Being who created and recreated every bit of elements existing in this universe.

There is a God who created order among planets; who gives directions to the orbit of these planets and the invisible orbits of many eternal things which the human eye can't see and the human mind far to comprehend.

There is a Supreme God of all gods who controls all eternal orders; who loves his creation, mortal and immortal, and his mighty power defies all earthly comprehension.n

I believe that this Supreme God has an exalted body of flesh and bone which in his own will wants his children who are yet in the mortal state can possess the same exalted body when these children will obey all his eternal commandments.

This Supreme God whose name is ELOHIM has his only begotten Son named JESUS CHRIST who was sent to the world to save it from destruction and save mankind from the consequences of their sins.

I believed and will always believe that all mankind was the premortal spirit children of the Supreme God; and that all living in this mortal state was according to the eternal plan of happiness he has prepared; that we are the premortal children of a Supreme God. We are loved and commanded to obey his commandments every single minute of our lives here on earth.

This is what I believe and I testify to it with all humility of heart.

Alright but without quoting the bible at me, can you tell me why it is that you believe that, what "evidence" led you to hold this belief.

At the moment it seems your point of view comes from scripture, which is not the topic of discussion and you did avoid bringing up to be fair.

I am genuinely interested in understanding your position, not so much in regards to Jesus, that is a separate issue even if you believe in jesus as god, I want to know why you believe in god, and equally to the athiests out there why don't you believe.

Hello,

I have been agnostic most of my life, but I've been atheist now for a few years, I never had religion pressed into my life, but it was available if I wanted it.

It has been a journey of discovery, at every turn I have found less and less reason to place so much blind faith in a God.

I have read scripture, I have been to a few sermons, I have investigated the different religions and their beliefs. None of them fit perfectly and all had many flaws, major flaws. (Racism, homophobia, gender discrimination).

I have always based my assumptions (assumptions due to lack of evidence) on the most likely possibility. In this application, it comes down to the old favorite; 'God, or no God?, that is the question'.

Well I chose no God, as this is the one which is more likely. Really more likely.

Take, for example irreducibility complexity. We are told that to spark life, it is the same complexity as dropping a pile of cogs and wheels on the floor which land in the perfect order of a working clock. Or as complex as a tornado crashing through a junk yard and leaving a working Boeing 747 in it's wake.

I agree, this is massively unlikely. But have a read of this:

Take for example the complexity of the 'being' or God which has power and intelligence to create universes not just watches or airplanes. This being is far more complex than the spark of life.

The building blocks for the spark of life are already here, in element form. This means that it's not creating something from nothing (basically impossible) Are the building blocks for God there before he is? Apparently not.

It seems to me to be far more likely that life started without the designer, than the designer existing in the first place.

So far we have discussed why it is more likely that we had no designer, but it doesnt't account for the big bang or the beginning of the universe.

This is something I am still looking at and haven't got to a definite answer, I am still open (barring intelligent design, I have already ruled that out) to new discoveries and observations.

I could believe in a 'God' of the universe in the terms of a mathematical equation which explains all things. It would be perfect, all knowing and infinite, but not 'intelligent'. It actually wouldn't care if you believed in it at all, why would it?

But at this time, I favour there being no God, for the resons described. it makes more sense, it is more likely, by far.







[edit on 16-12-2008 by Unsane]

personally, i dont like this statement.

dont get me wrong, there probably are questions that are unanswerable. no amount of logic or thinking or theories can unravel all the secrets of even our own earth better yet the whole universe.

however i find alot of people believe the same thing. because god is the ultimate question, there no way it can be proven.

i dont agree.

hypothetically, if god was a force (meaning not a person) or some mixture of force and person (like a tree), or maybe even a person who doesnt know what he has created (like a person with spoiling tomato sauce in the fridge who accidently makes a habitat ideal for mold). then i would agree. the answer is unattainable.

from our prospective we can only guess.

however, it is my own personal belief that we have something different. we have a person who wants to be found.

the improbability (if not impossibility) of abiogenesis leads me to believe we were created. the harmony of the bible along with prophecies and history leads me to believe that god wants us to have a relationship with him. (dont worry, im not going to quote scriptures)

the evidence is plainly there, but there are some reason why to some this is still ¨unprovable¨

---- i believe that some want it to be unprovable. its the almighty god, it cant be that simple. there has to be some ¨mystery¨to it. noone should be able to figure out the nature of god.

but the simple question is ¨why not¨? why cant it be that simple? understanding the basic nature of god doesnt mean that you know everything about him, in fact it doesnt mean you know much at all.

people on this forum know certain basic facts about my nature. they know my name, my sex, my race. maybe they know a few bits of information about my past, but do they really know me? if they decided to spend every day with me for years, wouldnt they learn more?

saying that god is a mystery simply because you want him to be is not an answer based in reality. it is a wish.

---- some people hate what the existence of god implies. the thought of accountability to someone is something they just dont like. these are the people who make posts about whether god is a killer, or whether god is just. these are questions that we should ask and we should probe, however they are not asking with a motive of searching. rather, they ask so that they can convince themselves. afterall, if noone can answer the question to a degree that is satisfactory for them, then they were right, right?

this also implies that ignorance is bliss. some people dont want to know the truth because they dont want to be responsible. if god exists, he/she cant punish me for something i knew nothing about right?

---- some people honestly dont believe in the existence of god. they reason things like ¨if there was a god, then why is there surffering? ¨ which of course is a good question. but what happens when a logical explanation is given? does god still remain unprovable?




if god wants to be worshipped, then the issue is provable. its no longer an issue of ¨why do you believe or not believe in god?¨ but rather ¨why do you want to believe or not believe in god?¨

your assuming that god has building blocks.

i understand what you are saying though. however logic i feel goes the other way.

order breeds chaos. complexity to simplicity.

no matter how complex a 747 is, it still more simple than its creator (a human)

so with this said, it would imply that nothing is as complex as god. not the universe nor us. what we have here is a seeming paradox.

however its not a paradox when you consider beginnings. something cannot come from absolute nothing. some scientist think that maybe nothing became unstable and resulted in something, but that faulty logic. if nothing becaomes ¨unstable¨, then its not nothing is it?

why am i rambling? well, it implies that ¨something¨ ALWAYS existed. a state of non-creation. non-beginning if you will.

its a hard concept for us to grasp, but its not impossible. take numbers. they have no end. it you wish to add more, just add 1 to whatever number you have. they have no beginning. even when the numbers go into negatives, just subtract one.

its a concept of infinity. the number one cause of headache on all who think.

the point is, if god is not created, then it doesnt matter if he has components or not. they are there and have always have been.

or, god doesnt exist, and the universe always has. one or the other has to have a non-beginning. we wouldnt exist otherwise

now, is it that god always existed and created something simpler than himself, or that the universe broke entopy and accidentally created life which is more complex?

bible explains that, however im not allowed to quote scripture.

Interesting point, but I would not agree that life is more complex than the universe itself. I mean basic life, the beginnings of evolution - not a complete Human.

Basically I agree with you on the point 'Where did the universe come from' it's bizarre! But I think there is a better answer than the God from scripture.

He seems boring, evil and a bit of an underachiever to me. He has the whole universe as his playground, can do anything with anything and settles for a tiny race of ignorant lifeforms who don't even know for certain if he exists.

It's too much of a human invention to be the actual truth.

There is another post on the go at the moment asking the same question so i will just cut and paste my answer from there.



Why i believe.

10 years ago i attended an ALPHA course and within six weeks i just had enough faith to believe that Jesus was real and a part of history.

This in turn gave me the courage to ask him into my life. From that day on many wonderful things have happened and i don't mean the kind of things that can easily be put down to coincidences.

Through prayer, my wife sent her wheelchair back after being told that there was nothing that the doctors could do about the degenerative desease in her back and geve her a box of pain killers.
the same illness went to her neck so she could not turn her head. (she had to sell her motorbike) during one prayer session she was healed and regained full movement.

Four times i have met people who were in severe pain and after a prayer lasting no more than 10 secs the pain had gone and all but one walked away perfectly normal. one of these prayers was said silently so i could not have influenced the outcome by what the person heard and the person who did not walk away healed was in no pain from the time of prayer. thier forearm was broken in two.
These are just a small sample of my time doing prayer ministry.

I have prayed over total strangers and told them things about themselves that were only known to themselves.

I speak in tongues. people say that you are talking just gibberish so why not have a go yourselves.
Try now to talk in some sort of foriegn language. Not in your head but out aloud. I bet you can't.

I have seen someone having a demon cast out and they were screaming that snakes were biting thier feet. Later when she removed her socks there were two puncture wounds on the top of her foot.

I could be in a perfectly normal situation watching TV or reading a book and tears would just flow down my face for no apparent reason. I would then have a word (thought) about something or someone. when i acted on those thoughts something special would become of it.

Thats why i believe in Jesus.

I also understand the other side of the coin because i was there for 47 years prior to my conversion to a believer.

Cheers jon.

If this happened to you would you believe?

I don't believe in any god, but I assume you mean a creator deity. I don't believe in a creator because I can't sense it with ANY of my 5 senses. Also, any evidence (ie. experiences) that other people have doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Also, people say "God loves you". How in the &*%# does this "God" have a consciousness? Where did it get this infinite knowledge? How does it think? It has no brain; no body. Where does it store this information?

On a side note, if "you" say the universe is too complex to have "just happened", who created god?


[edit on 16-12-2008 by flyindevil]

is it though? even the simplest of cells is radically complex thing, trading information, resources and speeds incomprehensible. if there is an example in this galaxy of components acting together in such a harmonious way so as to achieve a goal (something most if not all the universe doesnt have), then we simply havent seen it yet.

even complex chemistry mixtures such as stars do not have instinct for survival, or even a concept. they do not self will their positions, but instead are at the complete mercy of physics.

(mind you, im talking about the universe, not the laws that guide the universe)



i agree, if the bible is wrong, there could be other possibilities that we havent even thought of nor probably ever will, however, there still lies basically 3 possibilities. random creation, non random creation, or something between the 2.

personally the random bit is hard to swallow. its like saying that a pair of normal dice rolling 6´s every throw a billion times is perfectly normal.



i know im going to soound rude for saying this, i promise im not.

is it logic that makes you come to that conclusion, or that just how you want god to be? (not boring, for example)

It is, like you say, my representation of a God, yes.

I just think that a God with 'feelings' which actually cares for us and answers our prayers is a human invention - neccessary at the time.

It is not needed now, we have other avenues in which to find our answers. All the answers we have found point away from this Bible God and to no creator, or if anything - a god with no intelligence, just knowledge; (yes there is a difference).

what answers point in that direction?

I don't believe in anything. I know what I know, and I know god is real from personal experience. I do not know if "Jesus" is real or not, and I do not care. I do know that his story and the things he said spoke is truth in a way I learned from god, and in a way that I have never seen anyone speak or know it. The fact that it's been preserved despite the 2000 years of manipulation and leading people against it speaks volumes. He speaks truth to where I know that even if he wasn't real in the name of "Jesus(or the other ones)", that his story is in the least, divinely inspired.

The bible and organized religion can and is used for mind control. They use symbols and things of that nature to lead people around as their sheep. They tell people to look for Jesus, to accept Jesus, but they don't really say how or what it means. And those people keep looking externally for Jesus/God(as designed), and when they can't find it, organized religion holds up symbolism and says - here it is, follow us. Of course, the person doesn't want to feel "different" than the herd, so also goes along with it - figuring one day they will get it. This I also know from experience growing up in the bible belt, where I knew better than to say I was not christian around people.

You can tell who doesn't have understanding because they read the bible literally. These are the people who say "I believe god created me in 1 day", "the earth is only 6000 years old". "Dinosaurs are put here to test us". etc - you know the type(I called them church of Satan). And those are the people who have been mind controlled. They take the literal words as the only truth, rather than the understandings based on those literal words.

Is Jesus/God right because they are Jesus/God? Or are they God/Jesus because they are right? In other words - do you accept authority as truth, or truth as authority? I myself subscribe that truth is the only real authority, where as in organized religion, most of those people subscribe to authority as truth. And probably think accepting authority as truth and truth as authority is the same thing.

And I'm not allowed to quote the bible. But if you learn to read the bible in a way other than literal meaning, you will find that this is the exact same things Jesus himself faced and dealt with. But if you read the word "Pharisee", then you think a Pharisee doesn't exist in todays world, because nobody called them Pharisees. And a Christian doesn't realize when Jesus says "Jew", he is also talking about Christians because they call themselves christians, not jews. All because they only see the literal words only. All these christians who do all the hypocrisy you see are pharisees and blind people. Have mercy on them please, they do not know what they do.

The bible and god is not wrong. It's peoples lack of understanding on it that is wrong. If you get understanding, then you will also get what is sometimes called "Christ consciousness", or no longer being poor in spirit, and then you follow his example.

Tell me - if you looked at what would be a peaceful society - would you expect the people in that society to act towards each other any differently than how Jesus acts? Not a world with prisons, government, and systems of control, a free a peaceful society. It is often said that - I don't dislike Jesus, I just don't like those who worship him(I agree, as they worship the idol not his teachings). So if for nothing else, believe in the things he did as being truth/right. Not that he is god, the son of god, did miracles etc. Just believe and understand why the things he did were right/good. That is what he called believing even for the works sake. Afterall, is there anything he did that you can say is wrong/evil? If a person today stood up to the authorities in the way he did - I bet you'd be cheering that person on, and many people just wait for the day when it happens again.

Belief is not required. If you have enough understanding to see the hypocrisy in what is going on in the world, then you have enough understanding to see the real truth for yourself.




[edit on 16-12-2008 by badmedia]

In terms of answers pointing away from the bible God:

The universe is roughly 14 billion years old, discovered quite recently using astrophysiscs.

The earth is about 4 billion years old, we can see stars being created, we can see stars dying. (This shows that they do not need a helping hand)

We can observe evolutionary traits in multiple species, even observe adaption in bacteria and review archaeological data from the strata of the earth. Which all fits in with the theory.

We have proven that stories quoted as fact from the Bible are false (Noah's Ark for example). We have never recorded a provable miracle or something God-like in nature.

Im trying to convey that even though there is no absolute proof of no Biblical God, there has been nothing to support the God theory in the first place.

so has rape, war, murder, and gambling and guess what. you believe in those too.

Hello, Hello.
Why are my posts allways invisible, i don't understand it.
Here we have a thread on why do we believe or not believe in God and when someone gives thier testemony on why they do, people just ignore it.

Mind you, i can understand why.
The idea is really way above thier heads and they could not comprehend it anyway.
Really makes you feel appreciated around here. Well, ignorance is bliss i surpose...