Does God exist? (9 Viewers)

[msh]

i believe there is a divine power somewhere...........

 

[Not-That-Bright]

It is impossible to prove either possibilities.

True. But the difference is, the reason why I can't disprove God's existance is the same reason why I can't disprove the existance of fairies, zeus, pixies, whatever.

Hence, us christians litterally do live "by faith".

Not really... I'm sure there'll be justifications for your beliefs somewhere along the line. "By faith" simply isn't good enough for most people.

Without going into any detail why I chose to believe "by faith", I can tell u Athiests are pretty much also living "by faith".

I put it to you that the difference between atheist 'faith' and theist 'faith' is the difference between believing when you step out onto the road tomorrow it's not going to collapse in and believing a pixie shot you in the arse with a magical arrow to make you fall in love.

With the athiesm mentality, it is self contradticting for them to claim the validity of their own logic which no "higher being" has designed.

No higher being has designed.... their logic? :/

Which also really self placing themself in a position of a god.

This is something I hear quite a bit. It seems atheists are megalomaniacs or something...

I've tried to prove my own logic. Using various sources the furthest i can get is "I think therefore I am" (quote from some dude back in the days).

Oh cool... I can't even follow your logic written in informal language.

Also, no-god = believe in no salvation, God = believe in some sort of salvation.

Well no god is belief in no salvation, but while belief in god usually does mean a belief in salvation it doesn't always. Gods existance isn't automatically a good thing, he could be an evil tortuous God.

Now imagine urself in a death bed. The existance of god will remain independant of ones beliefs. soo lets go through the 2 scenarios when u die.

Ok... but I can see where this is going.

.... blah blah pascals wager

Now tell me with our common logic, Which path will be the safer path.

First of all... I don't think you can really 'choose' your beliefs, at least I can't. Evidence is required for me to believe - I guess if your argument really were sound, it might make sense for me to believe (if i could) but the best I feel I could do is feign belief and surely you realise that's not the same thing?

Secondly, you through in this:

Possibility (c): There is a god and afterlife and god is not generous coz u didn't meet the requirements or wrong religion.
Ending : Either game over again, or eternal pain in hell.

One 'possibility' in your wager is a fatal flaw. I'll explain why:

• All religions have equal possible merit (i.e. they're all as likely of being true).
• All characteristics (i.e. requirements) of people have an equal chance of being what pleases a god.
• Therefore, the chance that you actually meet to don't meet the requirements given we have no idea what the requirements could be is probably one to an infinite number.
  
  So not all these possibilities are equal...
  
  

  Possibility (g): There is a god and afterlife and ur in the right religion and met the requirements.
  Ending : welcome to heaven.

  The chance of you meeting the right requirements etc, if we give all possible characteristics an equal chance of being true is very low.
  
  --------
  
  

  Ofcourse the whole %age thing is completely inaccurate, taking each possibility with the same weighting and didn't consider the amount of religion that exists. Also ofcourse theres numerous ways to counter this, and i can think of about 3 ways by now but does ur heart really tell u to not take a chance.

  My heart really tells me that I can't truly believe something just because of a 13.333 greater percent chance in a gamble. Evidence is needed, this is nothing more than a boring sideshow...
  
  

  P.S btw there aren't many "real" religions out there. some pretty big ones that make no sense is this ten-do-5-way thingy. Basically saying. buhdism, christian, muslim, hindu, (someother religion).

  You've studied these religions and can explain why they make less sense than christianity in an objective sense?
  
  

  are all real and path ways to heaven, but u see muslim, christian claims there is only ONE god and hindu is like god for everything.

  Cool?
  
  

  Self contraditory religions has no credibility and can be ignored.

  Really? I'd say your religion might very well have logical contradictions. I.e. How would you explain the contradiction between a creator god and perfection? This all depends on what version of God you prescribe to of course... it varies.
  
  

  I would say theres not more than 5 Reliable religions (grouping similar ones together e.g Catholic/christian, YES i know they are heaps different but they still believe in teh same God).

  ok? This is just rhetoric... who cares? I mean you're offering no reason why we should believe these statements, they're just statements.
  
  

  I also found logic is very dynamic. factors effecting include education, country and age. A 5 year old doesn't give the crap whether or not its possible to be goku, they try thinking it is when they grow they will stop trying. things that might be convincing to some is as worthy as a skadi on a drow.

  ok
  
  

  I see there are alof of arguments in thsi thread (271 pages =.=) about stuff like.... "soo if I've never had the opportunity, heard of or believe in Suzumiya harhuri then ill be in hell, isn't that unfair!" well these statements are already on assumption that Hell, heaven, God is existing. so maybe a god isn't really concerned with whats unfair, evil, or absurd from a sane human.

  The statements are made to point out possible moral issues with people's belief systems.
  
  
  

  Im not trying to be rude or anything but I dont think theres a single line in the bible that supports this (bible says we will all be judged in front of him but not some time where u convert. Besides if u see jesus after ur dead, I dont think any sane human will reject his existance.). If there isn't then what on earth are ur religion teachers teaching.

  I don't think the bible originally taught of hell either, but you'll enjoy a wonderful argument with bshoc over that.

 

[paktorikku]

True. But the difference is, the reason why I can't disprove God's existance is the same reason why I can't disprove the existance of fairies, zeus, pixies, whatever

whats wrong with pixies. are u hinting pixies absolutely do not exist?

Quote:
Hence, us christians litterally do live "by faith".

Not really... I'm sure there'll be justifications for your beliefs somewhere along the line. "By faith" simply isn't good enough for most people.

The complete idea in christianity is believe "by faith" 100% and faith alone.

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works , so that no one can boast." - ephesians 2:21

"Therefore no-one will be declared righteous by sigh in observing the law" - romans 2:20

Those two passages explain pretty well that its 100% by faith and anyone who claiming that faith alone is not enough (for christians) isn't right. Whether or not most people are satisfied or not, faith and only faith is required. People who doubts and thinks faith simply isn't enough are usually described as "lost faith".

No higher being has designed.... their logic? :/

so how can u validate ur own logic with ur own logic.

Quote:
P.S btw there aren't many "real" religions out there. some pretty big ones that make no sense is this ten-do-5-way thingy. Basically saying. buhdism, christian, muslim, hindu, (someother religion).

You've studied these religions and can explain why they make less sense than christianity in an objective sense?

Huh? i think u misread something, christianity was a part of the list. soo how can christianity make less sense than christianity.

contradiction between a creator god and perfection?

what contradiction?

One 'possibility' in your wager is a fatal flaw

1st of all the weighting can never reach 1/infinite. since there aren't infinite claims of salvation. Therefore no matter how small it is be it 13.33% or 0.0000013%. it still leans towards one side. The wager is added on top so u dont get this lottery thing where the lower percentage can win.

I don't think the bible originally taught of hell either

The bible did teach of hell. "be in danger of the fire of hell" -mathews 5:22 (jesus said). also in jeremiah theres burning (allusion).

First of all... I don't think you can really 'choose' your beliefs, at least I can't. Evidence is required for me to believe

There more evidence FOR and existance of some sort of god and less evidence AGAINST some sort of god. Ur just simply placing big bang as a blanket of extrememly credible evidence to cover up everything else.

Also, explain to me how ur not choosing to believe that there is an "absolute truth" without evidence (ie ur pixies or ur zues). Or u can show me the evidence.

The other things are explained if u re-read over my previous post. e.g "Gods existance isn't automatically a good thing, he could be an evil tortuous God" - "There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching peopel suffer." <--. This also the reason why no one believes in zues, since there are no merits. Im sure if Zues claimed to give status of God after death of believers. There will be a recgonised religion today revolving around him.

and ....i never knew there was something called pascal wager that did this wager thing and published it and received recongition and discussed my many! Reading time XD.

wow numbers!

btw dont break my paragraphs by quoting in a way that destroys the idea of the paragraph itself. ie "are all real and path ways to heaven, but u see muslim, christian claims there is only ONE god and hindu is like god for everything. " is linked to "some pretty big ones that make no sense is this ten-do-5-way thingy. Basically saying. buhdism, christian, muslim, hindu, (someother religion)."

Quote:
Oh cool... I can't even follow your logic written in informal language.

Thanks.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

whats wrong with pixies. are u hinting pixies absolutely do not exist?

No, are you saying you believe pixies exist as much as you believe god exists? If so then I have no argument with you - Go forth into your fantasy world.

The complete idea in christianity is believe "by faith" 100% and faith alone.

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works , so that no one can boast." - ephesians 2:21

"Therefore no-one will be declared righteous by sigh in observing the law" - romans 2:20

Those two passages explain pretty well that its 100% by faith and anyone who claiming that faith alone is not enough (for christians) isn't right. Whether or not most people are satisfied or not, faith and only faith is required. People who doubts and thinks faith simply isn't enough are usually described as "lost faith".

My point was merely that no one (including I'd suspect you) choses to believe/not believe things in a vacuum where your only influence is faith. I didn't mention nor do I care for the bible's take on what a christian should be. I mean, how else did you even begin to muse on the wager?

so how can u validate ur own logic with ur own logic.

Ultimately I can't validate my logic any better than you can, all I'd say is I'm using the same sort of logic that you usually use (because it works, alot of it's built into our genes etc) and you merely have a lapse on some questions.

Huh? i think u misread something, christianity was a part of the list. soo how can christianity make less sense than christianity.

The claim i'm challenging is that there are some religions that make less sense, I'd like you to explain why - Keeping in mind you should apply the same burden of proof as you do against my claim of god's nonexistance.

what contradiction?

How could a perfect being create something? If it has a need for anything it is not perfect.

1st of all the weighting can never reach 1/infinite. since there aren't infinite claims of salvation. Therefore no matter how small it is be it 13.33% or 0.0000013%. it still leans towards one side. The wager is added on top so u dont get this lottery thing where the lower percentage can win.

There's essentially infinite possible 'claims of salvation'.

The bible did teach of hell. "be in danger of the fire of hell" -mathews 5:22 (jesus said). also in jeremiah theres burning (allusion).

I'll get back to this later... it's late.

There more evidence FOR and existance of some sort of god and less evidence AGAINST some sort of god. Ur just simply placing big bang as a blanket of extrememly credible evidence to cover up everything else.

I don't think Big Bang disproves God at all. As for more evidence for than against? I'd like to see it. I imagine it'll all be flawed and when I remove all the flawed reasoning we'll be left with nothing but logic which could be used to justify belief in pixies.

Also, explain to me how ur not choosing to believe that there is an "absolute truth" without evidence (ie ur pixies or ur zues). Or u can show me the evidence.

For starters, I don't think we can ever know anything, but to merely take that literally to stop any quest for knowledge leads us nowhere. So I first like to suppose that it's an 'absolute' truth that we cannot know everything for certain but some things we must be willing to accept if we're to have any knowledge at all.

The other things are explained if u re-read over my previous post. e.g "Gods existance isn't automatically a good thing, he could be an evil tortuous God" - "There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching peopel suffer." <--. This also the reason why no one believes in zues, since there are no merits. Im sure if Zues claimed to give status of God after death of believers. There will be a recgonised religion today revolving around him.

You didn't explain them well enough...

and ....i never knew there was something called pascal wager that did this wager thing and published it and received recongition and discussed my many! Reading time XD.

cool

btw dont break my paragraphs by quoting in a way that destroys the idea of the paragraph itself. ie "are all real and path ways to heaven, but u see muslim, christian claims there is only ONE god and hindu is like god for everything. " is linked to "some pretty big ones that make no sense is this ten-do-5-way thingy. Basically saying. buhdism, christian, muslim, hindu, (someother religion)."

Maybe I misunderstood you... you are claiming that there are some religions out there that you consider to automatically be wrong, correct? There are some religions out there that you claim are not a pathway to salvation, correct?

By the way, I'd wonder how you manage to justify your view that many (from my pov opposing) religions (that reject christ as lord and saviour) can still be a path to heaven with your christian views?

 

[KFunk]

With the athiesm mentality, it is self contradticting for them to claim the validity of their own logic which no "higher being" has designed.

I feel I should point out that both atheists and theists make use of the same logic, in particular they use some variation on classical logic ('if A then B' is true, and 'A' is true, therefore 'B' is true etc). It is my belief that logically valid statements are true irrespective of whether or not there is a god, in the same vein as pure mathematical theorems such as '1 + 1 = 2'. Is it really within god's power to determine whether or not '1 + 1 = 2'? Did you mean something other than 'logic' when you used that term, 'argument' for example?

So how can u validate ur own logic with ur own logic?

This question has troubled many people and, frankly, I don't think that the existence of god makes it any easier to answer. I say this for similar reasons to those stated above, i.e. that I think that logical truths are independent of god and that omnipotence does not include the power to make '1 + 1 = 2' false.

The other things are explained if u re-read over my previous post. e.g "Gods existance isn't automatically a good thing, he could be an evil tortuous God" - "There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching peopel suffer." <--. This also the reason why no one believes in zues, since there are no merits. Im sure if Zues claimed to give status of God after death of believers. There will be a recgonised religion today revolving around him.

I'm curious about what you mean here. Are you saying that people are guided by self-interest when they choose which god to believe in? A semi-related question: Do you have any discerning criteria with which you can choose between all the different religious alternatives?

 

[Kwayera]

How could a perfect being create something? If it has a need for anything it is not perfect.

And there we reach the crux of the argument, again. The Bible says that God is perfect - indeed, it is the pillar on which the whole Christian faith rests - and yet the fundamental flaw is that, in essence, to be 'perfect' God CANNOT be perfect (and what defines this perfection, anyway?)

Many times throughout the Bible God is seen to change his mind, waver - and as NTB said, he 'created us', which trumps perfection because a perfect being would not need the fulfilment of a planet full of humans to validate itself.

 

[Kwayera]

The other things are explained if u re-read over my previous post. e.g "Gods existance isn't automatically a good thing, he could be an evil tortuous God" - "There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching peopel suffer." <--. This also the reason why no one believes in zues, since there are no merits. Im sure if Zues claimed to give status of God after death of believers. There will be a recgonised religion today revolving around him.

And yet there were vast numbers of people worshipping Zeus a few short thousand years ago. Are you saying that civilisations of the past are inherently misguided and less capable of deductive religious reasoning (there's got to be a contradiction in there somewhere)? That simply because the majority of believers today believe in a single variant God as opposed to a whole host?

Who are you to say that?

 

[Li Lin Chin]

I think God exist. He answer my prayer and move me from China to Australia. I will be give up his love for me he great thing in my life. Nobody can be like him my in me feeling.

 

[bshoc]

And there we reach the crux of the argument, again. The Bible says that God is perfect - indeed, it is the pillar on which the whole Christian faith rests - and yet the fundamental flaw is that, in essence, to be 'perfect' God CANNOT be perfect (and what defines this perfection, anyway?)

Many times throughout the Bible God is seen to change his mind, waver - and as NTB said, he 'created us', which trumps perfection because a perfect being would not need the fulfilment of a planet full of humans to validate itself.

Thats not really a crux, since along that line of thinking you are an imperfect being and thus would be in no state to dissect the motives and purpose of perfection.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Thats not really a crux, since along that line of thinking you are an imperfect being and thus would be in no state to dissect the motives and purpose of perfection.

True, our logic can never be known to be perfect or whatever, that'll always be a problem in all our thinking. The point is though, from what we understand, it appears to us as if it is logically impossible for something to be perfect (i.e. complete) yet still be needy.

We might be wrong, but we might be wrong about alot of things. If we're wrong about what would constitute a fairly basic logical contradiction then chances are we know nothing.

 

[Kwayera]

But then you have to argue that through being imperfect, I should not be able to discern perfection - is it not true then, also, that perfection cannot discern imperfection? That God, supposedly being perfect, would not know what imperfection is, and thus have no bearing on judging humans as imperfect?

 

[ElGronko]

Where is god?

 

[bshoc]

True, our logic can never be known to be perfect or whatever, that'll always be a problem in all our thinking. The point is though, from what we understand, it appears to us as if it is logically impossible for something to be perfect (i.e. complete) yet still be needy.

We might be wrong, but we might be wrong about alot of things. If we're wrong about what would constitute a fairly basic logical contradiction then chances are we know nothing.

If we are imperfect, then our logic, must also be imperfect.

 

[bshoc]

Where is god?

What makes you so sure questions like Where, When, Who are relevant questions to apply to "god."

If god is a perfect being that created space and time, its is only logical (by our own imperfect logic) that god not be constrained by them.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

If we are imperfect, then our logic, must also be imperfect.

That statement refutes its own axioms.

 

[bshoc]

That statement refutes its own axioms.

I never said our logic can't be perfect, it can, but in the context of our own imperfection.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

I never said our logic can't be perfect, it can, but in the context of our own imperfection.

Err try explaining that a bit further.

 

[dilroy]

People who believe in God are normally weak minded or have been forced upon as a child thus not being able to remove it from the mind.

Tell me if God is perfect why does he allow the creation of the imperfect or such human beings that are evil minded, thus leading to their fate in eternal hell? If God can foresee the future of these people why create them in the first place? Why create a suffering human that will go to hell? It can be compared to a father having a child for the purpose of beating him up until he dies.

And why did God create the universe? Was he just bored and one day decided to create the universe for the sake of it?

Realistically is Jesus the son of God? Or was he just a crazy man who thought he was the son of God? Why is it that Jesus suddenly claimed to be the son of God when he was an adult and not a child? If some dude popped out of nowhere today and claimed to be the son/daughter of God would you think this person is a nutcase? I think so... I mean those people are normally the idiots that commit pedophilia, "Ohh God has umm... told me... that you will be the savior of me so suck me off now".

Doesn't the discovery of dinosaurs/evolution render the existence of God? Oh yeah I forgot... this new bullshit "Intelligent design" concept tells how God created the Big Bang and caused evolution... oh right in the 20th century God came back down to Earth and told the people "Sorry for not showing up in 2000 years but I'd like to inform you all that I created the big bang" then he suddenly pops back into the universal plains right? Oh wait no... God didn't do that because he doesn't exist, it must be the humans on Earth that are making the decisions for God...

If God created Earth, why are there religions and beliefs that were created before the existence of the concept of a God? Did God create Asians and Black people for the sake of sending them to hell? Let's face it, Christianity is only big because of the European sea navigation power, brainwashing all the cultures they colonise.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

People who believe in God are normally weak minded or have been forced upon as a child thus not being able to remove it from the mind.

Not true, I also suspect it's circular in that you'd say a 'God believer' is weak minded because they believe in god and they believe in god because they're weak minded.

 

[lengy]

Suits my lounge chair reasoning just fine. *lies back, lights a cigar

It's also lazy thinking, but you sorta come to that when you get bored of having to counter the same arguements over and over.