View Full Version : Do you believe in God?
PhillyDancer1982
01-27-2008, 09:32 AM
I believe there is a higher power out there. Whether that power is god, allah, fate...call it what you will. Humans are NOT the be all and end all of power in the universe...we CANT be. This life CANT be as good as it gets..please tell me it isnt.
But I am not arrogant enough to think for a second I know anything about such a power, no less what it thinks or wants,which I feel is the main problem with most organized religions.Arrogance.
I "pray" by sending out thoughts as to what I want or need..or to ask for help or to say thanks for whats happened to me. But I dont assign a name or deity to those thoughts.
I agree with all of this.
The reason why I am liberal in my religious views, and believe that the specifics of religion should be open to individuals' own interpretations, are because we do NOT know what God really is or what he(or she? IDK) 100% wants. We cannot completely judge. Even the Bible was written by people(not God himself) and some loss in translation occured over the generations...also, it is written rather symbolically. So I agree with what Cameron says about the "arrogance."
BalletBaby
01-27-2008, 09:18 PM
I not only believe in God, but I found Jesus. He was with Elvis the whole time.
Really? Because Jesus was my neighbor when I lived in SoCal.
Duuude. Jesus is fricken everywhere, even in my management class.
HerHubby
01-27-2008, 09:53 PM
The more I learn about the astoundingly complex order of everything in nature and in the cosmos, the more I doubt that it all happened as one big coincidence. I've had this conversation before and my conclusion went something like this:
That which created the Universe ought to be considered Holy. Whether you call it God, Allah, Zeus and his buddies, Chance, or whatever. It's all really the same thing. God created the Universe and its rules (physics, etc.) The Universe created Earth. Earth (with help from the Universe) created Life. Life created Evolution. Evolution created Man. Man created Religion. Religion created Differences and the notion that Some are Surely Right and all others are Surely Wrong. Differences created hatred, conflict, war, genocide, and a whole list of bad things. It's the law of diminishing returns. The problems arise when people focus on that which Man created, and mistakenly assume it is what God created. And then fight about it.
cameron_keys
01-27-2008, 09:57 PM
The more I learn about the astoundingly complex order of everything in nature and in the cosmos, the more I doubt that it all happened as one big coincidence. I've had this conversation before and my conclusion went something like this:
That which created the Universe ought to be considered Holy. Whether you call it God, Allah, Zeus and his buddies, Chance, or whatever. It's all really the same thing. God created the Universe and its rules (physics, etc.) The Universe created Earth. Earth (with help from the Universe) created Life. Life created Evolution. Evolution created Man. Man created Religion. Religion created Differences and the notion that Some are Surely Right and all others are Surely Wrong. Differences created hatred, conflict, war, genocide, and a whole list of bad things. It's the law of diminishing returns. The problems arise when people focus on that which Man created, and mistakenly assume it is what God created. And then fight about it.
Well said! I'm totally stealing this(with your permission of course)...it is a fabulous argument against the bible thumpers!In fact I may print it out on a flyer and starting handing it silently to the Jehovahs Witnesses that insist on coming by my house on a regular basis.
HerHubby
01-27-2008, 10:38 PM
Thanks Cameron! Feel free to use what you like, however you like.
I'm also starting to wonder if Heaven and Hell are really what you make of your time here on Earth.
And another thing: You can't really take it literally or word for word, but did you ever notice how the first part of Genesis sort of parallels the scientific view of creation, including the Big Bang theory? At first there was nothing. Then there were the Heavens and Earth and Day and Night. And then there were oceans and continents. Then plants. And sea creatures. And creatures on the land. And finally Man.
I think someone earlier in this thread mentioned something to the effect that science and theology were not necessarily exclusive of each other. That it is possible for them to coexist. I agree.
UtahMike
01-27-2008, 11:08 PM
On atheism: it takes a stronger degree of faith to believe in nothing than it does to believe in a religion.
On Biblical inerrancy: NOWHERE in the Bible is a claim made that it is inerrant. That belief has definitely been made up by humans. The Bible contains fiction, poetry, allegories, philosophy, history, political propaganda, etc. martin Luther said that the Bible was authoritative, not inerrant.
On believing and being baptized: It says in the bible that those who believe and are baptized shall be saved. So, lots of Christians assume that those that don't believe and aren't baptized shall be damned. But the Bible does not say that. It is silent on that subject. When Jesus speaks of judgment day, he says that those who treated others with kindness and humanity will be saved, and those who did not will be cast to the "outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth." So, if you have been kind and tried to help others, you just may find yourselves in heaven.
And if Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church) is right, I'm headed for hell.
So, I usually don't worry about it and try to do the best I can to make the world a better place.
Lunarobverse
01-27-2008, 11:39 PM
On atheism: it takes a stronger degree of faith to believe in nothing than it does to believe in a religion.
This statement confuzzles me. What do you mean by "faith" and what do you mean by "nothing" and have you ever actually met someone who a) claims to be an atheist and b) "believes in nothing"?
Perhaps you're conflating atheism with nihilism? 'Cause they're not the same thing at all.
And I'm not trying to be rude at all. I'm aiming for light-hearted but honestly confused. I totally can't tell by the rest of your post; I can read it as either an insult or a compliment towards atheists, so I'm deliberately not reading anything into it. Just askin'.
UtahMike
01-28-2008, 12:05 AM
Certainly it was not intended as an insult, just my opinion. Allow me to explain.
An atheist is stronger in faith than a believer because an atheist receives NO feedback to confirm his/her belief. A Christian can cite personal experiences with God or examples of prayers answered, and while another person cannot confirm or deny them, they provide the Christian with encouragement.
There are numerous other reinforcers for a person who believes: fellowship with other believers, an easing of grief when a loved one passes away, etc.
An atheist has to base his/her belief strictly on faith that there is no God (this is what I meant by believing in nothing) and must sustain this faith without any evidence to support it. And I don't think that atheists meet together on a weekly basis to celebrate their atheism and then have coffee afterwards.
That is why I think an atheist must have a stronger belief than anyone who believes in any God or religion.
A nihilist believes that NOTHING has value or meaning. I was not talking about nihilism.
Lunarobverse
01-28-2008, 12:26 AM
Thanks for explaining that. I can see what you're saying, but it just seems like such a mirror-image view of what atheism means for me, and what I understand from other atheists I've talked to or read. And may I be the first to let you know: not all atheists are atheists for the same reasons. There's as much diversity of opinion on the topic as there are among... well... every other human being on the planet. :)
I don't see lack of God-belief as a hole to be filled, because I get constant, daily reinforcement of my understanding of a rational, ordered, well-functioning universe. I get that reinforcement on very low-level ways (persistence of objects in space and time, for instance), on human-scale ways (gravity always seems to work properly; the sun appears to move through the sky in a predictable way), up to the larger, universal scale (simple measurements of the speed of light produce models of the universe's time and enormous scale, for example, and explain the sights we see and hear and detect in deep space).
I would never describe that continual re-discovery as "belief in nothing", and it would be gilding the lily to need to invent some Prime Mover or First Cause to set it in motion... who created the Creator, then? And who or what created the Creator's Creator?
Better, and more peaceful and elegant, in my view, to just accept what is, and not feel the need to come up with a "better story" to explain it all. I don't need unfounded faith when I have well-founded observation and experiment. And if something seems to go against the previous model, then my assumption will always be that there is a rational, ordered, and discoverable model that explains any deviation, even if I, personally, will never directly comprehend that model. The supernatural, in the sense of something happening without a cause, is... inelegant.
Duuude. Jesus is fricken everywhere, even in my management class.
Duuude. I know! He even goes to stripclubs! I saw him at my club on Saturday night! :D
HerHubby
01-28-2008, 07:21 AM
Luna,
I like how you deeply appreciate the "elegance" of our natural universe and the rules by which it abides. It is a consistent source of amazement for me as well. Ex: When I first did some reading about alternative energy sources I got hooked on hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most basic element, in an elegant chemical system. It is the most common element in the entire universe, Earth included. If we combine it with oxygen, also very commonly found, it makes pure water which is the most common compound on the surface of our planet. It is also essential to life for EVERYTHING, which adds to its elegance factor. If we use the cleanest energy form of all, solar (which is itself derived from a hydrogen reaction), we can then divide the water back into hydrogen (which can burn cleanly and powerfully, like our sun) leaving pure oxygen as the main byproduct, which is in itself essential to all animal life on the planet. An elegant cycle.
I think we can learn more about the way things ought to be (i.e. the truths of the univierse/ the truths of life) by just studying the world around us than we can by seeking the truth from close minded individuals like "Fred Phelps" (from an earlier post). Always consider the source of your information and its potential for fallibility.
BalletBaby
01-28-2008, 12:23 PM
Duuude. I know! He even goes to stripclubs! I saw him at my club on Saturday night! :D
Whoa. :O