Does God exist? (8 Viewers)

[inasero]

I am unsure why you keep posting in this thread, since your views are based on a central assumption without any argument/reasoning. The only option that is really open to you is to engage in hand-waving in order to convince others to accept your assumption.

I've rejected a number of things that my heart was tied up with since I was young - notably free will and objective morality. I made the choice to critically examine my beliefs. For a moment of rhetoric --> Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." (Apology 38a)

The Christian life is all about examining yourself and your beliefs. At least it's what allows me to have the faith in Jesus that I do, and consequently seek to live and think the way I do.

 

[mythical chaos]

welll after hundred of pages and thousands of responses the answer is....drum roll please...YES!!..there is a god....to all the atheists out there let me give u a little scenario...its actually an islamic story but it doesn't really have to be...ok long story short it goes like this:

there was a prominent sheikh at a time...he was being heckled by a prominent group of atheists at the time...both parties insisted their beliefs strongly...so one day they agreed on a public debate on the matter, i.e. each side tried to assert their arguments and disprove the other's arguments. anyway they picked a date, time and place. now the sheikh had a plan already to assert his argument. he let the aethiest group arrive at the location first, letting himself delay the debate on purpose...anyway time passed and the atheists were already rejoicing thinking the sheikh chickened out...until they spotted him coming down the river in a boat...they were surprised he made it nonetheless attempted to get on with the debate...however they couldn't help but mock the fact he almost didn't show up...so they asked him why this was so...so he told them this:
well i came to cross the river, only to realise i had no boat...so i sat there thinking how i am going to cross the river without a boat to no avail...suddenly out of nowhere, a nearby tree starting cutting ITSELF!! the wood broke off, started cutting itself into the shape of a small boat...the whole process of making a small boat was done right before my very eyes by ITSELF!!..its like an invisible person was doing it...it was miraculous+

at that point the group of atheists and the people gathered to watch the debate burst out into a fit of laughter, proclaiming "do you expect us to believe that the boat you just crossed the river with just appeared miraculously out of thin air and made itself without anyone making it..." upon which the sheikh said something very wise, which basically shut the people up. what he said was : "do you expect me to believe that the world, the whole universe, human beings, animal life, the complexity of the human body, etc. made itself without anyone making it...

P.S the sheikh won the debate

im not sayin u have to believe in islam or whatever, you can believe what you want, jus saying its mind-boggling that aetheists can believe that there is no god

You are a moron! You claim that God made everything with your parable of the tree, continuing with your parable - something made that tree... WHO OR WHAT THE FUCK MADE GOD???

 

[KFunk]

Yes you're absolutely right, and you give a nice simple explanation of why you're agnostic to boot. What true has been trying to say much better than I could express, is that faith for her is not a matter of empirical evidence. The evidence for Christians is how God is working in our and other peoples lives, and that suffices as evidence enough if that kind of makes sense.

My rejoinder is then that the direction in which you aim your faith is unreasoned and, for the most part, seems to be culturally conditioned. The latter issue of cultural conditioning, in particular, I feel justifies a highly critical approach to faith based claims. But this is one of those points where we may have to agree to disagree.

On your other post: it's not just about simply consideration. More importantly it is critical evaluation.

 

[inasero]

I agree, I can speak for myself (as someone very analytical by nature, more so than most other Christians) that I've critically examined my life, and believe that God providing Jesus as a sacrifice is the only way I can be made right with God. I've examined other religions and none of them make those sort of claims or can offer an iron-clad guarantee of salvation. As for whether these beliefs could have been culturally conditioned, I don't deny that our thoughts are influenced by the society in which we live and I've often pondered that same question myself. But I can tell you that the influence is more likely to go the other way (i.e. in favour of becoming a secular humanist) and growing up, I didn't even know the central gospel message until year 10 (i.e. I thought people go to Heaven by keeping the 10 commandments ). Then you have the conundrum of how people are willing put their lives and possession on the line in countries that are not so open or sometimes outright hostile to Christianity.

 

[inasero]

You are a moron! You claim that God made everything with your parable of the tree, continuing with your parable - something made that tree... WHO OR WHAT THE FUCK MADE GOD???

Well I mean how far back do you want to go? Did the chicken or egg come first?

 

[webby234]

Well I mean how far back do you want to go? Did the chicken or egg come first?

The chicken

Species change over time in the process of evolution. Since DNA can only be modified before birth, a mutation must have taken place at conception or within an egg such that an animal similar to a chicken, but not a chicken laid the first chicken egg.[11][12]

However, a mutation in one individual is not normally considered a new species. A speciation event involves the separation of one population from its parent population, so that interbreeding ceases; this is the process whereby domesticated animals are genetically separated from their wild forebears. The whole separated group can then be recognized as a new species.

The modern chicken was believed to have descended from another closely related species of birds, the red junglefowl, but recently discovered genetic evidence suggests that the modern domestic chicken is a hybrid descendant of both the red junglefowl and the grey junglefowl.[13] Assuming the evidence bears out, a hybrid is a compelling scenario that the chicken came before the egg.

 

[inasero]

The chicken

The question was rhetoric

 

[xeuyrawp]

WHO OR WHAT THE FUCK MADE GOD???

Since there are no intelligent Christians around, I guess I'll argue for them for a while.

How can we talk about what made God when we can't even soundly explain what "made" the big bang, and what was before it? There are more theories about the origin of God than that of the big bang, most of which predate big bang science, so are perhaps outdated.

And to be honest, considering our understanding of the genesis of the universe is quite new (last century really), I don't see why there would be theories about God's genesis before or soon after (this century). It's not like God's creation/birth/etc is written about in the Bible, so we have nothing to go by.

 

[tommykins]

welll after hundred of pages and thousands of responses the answer is....drum roll please...YES!!..there is a god....to all the atheists out there let me give u a little scenario...its actually an islamic story but it doesn't really have to be...ok long story short it goes like this:

there was a prominent sheikh at a time...he was being heckled by a prominent group of atheists at the time...both parties insisted their beliefs strongly...so one day they agreed on a public debate on the matter, i.e. each side tried to assert their arguments and disprove the other's arguments. anyway they picked a date, time and place. now the sheikh had a plan already to assert his argument. he let the aethiest group arrive at the location first, letting himself delay the debate on purpose...anyway time passed and the atheists were already rejoicing thinking the sheikh chickened out...until they spotted him coming down the river in a boat...they were surprised he made it nonetheless attempted to get on with the debate...however they couldn't help but mock the fact he almost didn't show up...so they asked him why this was so...so he told them this:
well i came to cross the river, only to realise i had no boat...so i sat there thinking how i am going to cross the river without a boat to no avail...suddenly out of nowhere, a nearby tree starting cutting ITSELF!! the wood broke off, started cutting itself into the shape of a small boat...the whole process of making a small boat was done right before my very eyes by ITSELF!!..its like an invisible person was doing it...it was miraculous+

at that point the group of atheists and the people gathered to watch the debate burst out into a fit of laughter, proclaiming "do you expect us to believe that the boat you just crossed the river with just appeared miraculously out of thin air and made itself without anyone making it..." upon which the sheikh said something very wise, which basically shut the people up. what he said was : "do you expect me to believe that the world, the whole universe, human beings, animal life, the complexity of the human body, etc. made itself without anyone making it...

P.S the sheikh won the debate

im not sayin u have to believe in islam or whatever, you can believe what you want, jus saying its mind-boggling that aetheists can believe that there is no god

Well fuck wasn't that a waste of my fucking time.

As a side-note, has anyone actually read all 576 pages of posts?

Yes. My agnostic (leaning towards atheism) view still sticks.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

welll after hundred of pages and thousands of responses the answer is....drum roll please...YES!!..there is a god....to all the atheists out there let me give u a little scenario...its actually an islamic story but it doesn't really have to be...ok long story short it goes like this:

there was a prominent sheikh at a time...he was being heckled by a prominent group of atheists at the time...both parties insisted their beliefs strongly...so one day they agreed on a public debate on the matter, i.e. each side tried to assert their arguments and disprove the other's arguments. anyway they picked a date, time and place. now the sheikh had a plan already to assert his argument. he let the aethiest group arrive at the location first, letting himself delay the debate on purpose...anyway time passed and the atheists were already rejoicing thinking the sheikh chickened out...until they spotted him coming down the river in a boat...they were surprised he made it nonetheless attempted to get on with the debate...however they couldn't help but mock the fact he almost didn't show up...so they asked him why this was so...so he told them this:
well i came to cross the river, only to realise i had no boat...so i sat there thinking how i am going to cross the river without a boat to no avail...suddenly out of nowhere, a nearby tree starting cutting ITSELF!! the wood broke off, started cutting itself into the shape of a small boat...the whole process of making a small boat was done right before my very eyes by ITSELF!!..its like an invisible person was doing it...it was miraculous+

at that point the group of atheists and the people gathered to watch the debate burst out into a fit of laughter, proclaiming "do you expect us to believe that the boat you just crossed the river with just appeared miraculously out of thin air and made itself without anyone making it..." upon which the sheikh said something very wise, which basically shut the people up. what he said was : "do you expect me to believe that the world, the whole universe, human beings, animal life, the complexity of the human body, etc. made itself without anyone making it...

P.S the sheikh won the debate

im not sayin u have to believe in islam or whatever, you can believe what you want, jus saying its mind-boggling that aetheists can believe that there is no god

...

You can't quote a story as evidence for God. You can use the idea presented in the story to try and form an argument for why you believe a God exists, but simply telling a story and making the leap to "it's mind boggling that atheists can believe there is no God", does nothing to bolster your position.

 

[katie tully]

lol cant wait to get home so i can read all of this, net too slow here

 

[ari89]

lol cant wait to get home so i can read all of this, net too slow here

Summary:

1. NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
2. YOU CAN'T CREATE ENERGY OR DESTROY ENERGY
3. ONUS OF PROOF IS ON YOU
4. NO YOU
5. YOU
6. NO YOU...YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING DOESN'T EXIST JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PROVE IT DOES EXIST
7. YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING DOES EXIST IF YOU CAN'T PROVE IT
8. SAYS WHO?
9. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE
10. LOOK AT THE TREES
etc

*enters noob.*
The banana is designed to fit into the hand of a person therefore God exists.

(I haven't read it I'm just taking a stab)

 

[tommykins]

Summary:

1. NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
2. YOU CAN'T CREATE ENERGY OR DESTROY ENERGY
3. ONUS OF PROOF IS ON YOU
4. NO YOU
5. YOU
6. NO YOU...YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING DOESN'T EXIST JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PROVE IT DOES EXIST
7. YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING DOES EXIST IF YOU CAN'T PROVE IT
8. SAYS WHO?
9. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE
10. LOOK AT THE TREES
etc

*enters noob.*
The banana is designed to fit into the hand of a person therefore God exists.

(I haven't read it I'm just taking a stab)

lol'd

 

[Riet]

If there is a god why would he want all you fucktards following false prophets?

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

I want to know how it's possible to accept the banana argument, tbh. I don't know how you can conclude that something was "designed" especially with the human anatomy in mind, because really, we're pretty good at manipulating shit whether it's conveniently constructed or not (like anal sex lol).

Unless that's the argument? That we are the ones who were designed to hold the banana, not the banana designed to help us?

Either way, it's a weak argument.

 

[Enteebee]

Yes, I am inclined to reject that god (in particular if it comes bundled with stories that feature talking snakes and so forth). There are different interpretations of the Abrahamic god, of course, depending on how literally/figuratively you read biblical passages (and similar for the Quran I assume) but I do find that the canonical personal god is a hard concept to buy into.

Perhaps our best bet when asked whether you believe in god would be to respond "what god?" since I think we both agree there are some conceptions of God which are truly beyond our ability to have a worthwhile argument against and there are others which we can satisfactorily say we don't think exist. I guess the question is usually "Do you believe in any God?" but this seems an almost pointless question to answer given the particularly abstract nature of the concept.

How can we talk about what made God when we can't even soundly explain what "made" the big bang, and what was before it?

BEFORE time? I think Hawking said it best, that's like asking "What's north of the north pole?" Though I will acknowledge that a fair amount of research is being done into the possibility that there was time before our time etc, though even if there was it's quite possible to still end up in a "What's north of the north pole?" type of scenario.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

I want to know how it's possible to accept the banana argument, tbh. I don't know how you can conclude that something was "designed" especially with the human anatomy in mind, because really, we're pretty good at manipulating shit whether it's conveniently constructed or not (like anal sex lol).

Unless that's the argument? That we are the ones who were designed to hold the banana, not the banana designed to help us?

Either way, it's a weak argument.

it's even funnier because the banana specifically was designed by humans, we know it was

99% of fundies haven't fact checked anything they believe, there's at least a dozen instances of people in this thread coming in and getting an education from the regulars

EDIT: well probably less than 99%, but usually the ones who have don't care because they're making money out of it

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

it's even funnier because the banana specifically was designed by humans, we know it was

99% of fundies haven't fact checked anything they believe, there's at least a dozen instances of people in this thread coming in and getting an education from the regulars

EDIT: well probably less than 99%, but usually the ones who have don't care because they're making money out of it

Exactly. But it doesn't matter how many times you explain it, they persist in believing that God had to have designed bananas. FFS, artificial selection, motherfucker, do yew speak it.

Argh.

Anyway. Ten bucks to the first person who can prove their case for intelligent design beyond doubt in this thread. No make that a hundred.

 

[Yahweh]

Exactly. But it doesn't matter how many times you explain it, they persist in believing that God had to have designed bananas. FFS, artificial selection, motherfucker, do yew speak it.

Argh.

Anyway. Ten bucks to the first person who can prove their case for intelligent design beyond doubt in this thread. No make that a hundred.

I am God. Pay up.

 

[Riet]

Nothing can create something more intelligent than the sum of its parts therefore it's impossible that humans were created from anything less than something atleast as intelligent.