Does God exist?

[goku]

And how do you know what sin is without some human to manipulate your interpretations of it?

 

"him that knoweth to do good but do it not, to him it is sin"

[REASON]

God is still the same and he will destroy the world again.

 

:shrug:

 

we now live under Grace, Jesus stands between us and God

Jesus told us to love our enemies.

 

Wait, I thought Jesus was the embodiment of God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit as one.

[modest]

God is still the same and he will destroy the world again.

we now live under Grace, Jesus stands between us and God

Jesus told us to love our enemies

 

Ok goku. God hates us and wants to kill us all and one day he will but for now Jesus is stopping him. Fine. Jesus says it’s a sin to hate your neighbor and God hates us. If you don’t see a problem then I won’t push the issue.

 

-modest

[goku]

Wait, I thought Jesus was the embodiment of God. Father, Son, Holy Sprit as one.

 

yep

[goku]

Ok goku. God hates us and wants to kill us all and one day he will but for now Jesus is stopping him. Fine. Jesus says it’s a sin to hate your neighbor and God hates us.

 

no it's the sin

[modest]

no it's the sin

 

Did you read post 151? Did you see it printed in black and white in THE holy bible God abhors people right down to his very soul. He hates them and he'll kill them and desecrate their carcass. That's what it says.

 

Your response in post 153 looked like you got that. :shrug:

 

If you think that's wrong then just say so. If you don't believe every part of the bible is right then just say so. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

 

-modest

[goku]

it's about 10:50P.M. here and i've got to get up at 3:00A.M. to milk some cows.

i count it a privilege having talked to you this evening, goodnight. :shrug:

[modest]

Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

goodnight. :shrug:

I guess it does make it go away :lol:

 

-modest

 

//edit... Ok, I was unfair with this.

[nutronjon]

"Arguing there is no Celestial Teapot, instead of the nature of Celestial Teapots, is a fools endeavor. Arguing there is no Celestial Teapot, gets us no closer to understanding the nature of the Celestial Teapot.

However, arguing the nature of the Celestial Teapot, reveals the self evident truths, upon which democracy depends. ":eek_big::shrug:

 

Democracy doesn't depend on your particular brand of deity, and it seems like an arrogant assumption on your part to suggest so.

Freedom and democracy are ideas stemming from our ability and willingness to be reasonable, which is in stark contradiction with belief in any sort of supernatural forces.

 

I'd like to recommend that all watch this video by Steven Pinker entitled "On Reason" form bigthink.com, in which he discusses secular enlightenment and the value of reason:

On Reason - Big Think

 

 

Here are two others on a related topic for those interested, "Where are we" ,discussing the obstacles to secular enlightenment:

Re: Where are we? - Big Think

And "How do you make sense of the unknown?" in which he discusses how making up stories to explain things we don't understand or do not know can only result in mischief, and may even be immoral: Re: How do you make sense of the unknown? - Big Think

 

Popular author and outspoken atheist Sam Harris also has a bigthink channel, for those interested:

Sam Harris - Big Think

 

Who said anything about "a particular brand of deity"?

[InfiniteNow]

Who said anything about "a particular brand of deity"?

 

Your question is akin to someone in an argument about the existence of unicorn's asking their opponent, "who said they were purple?"

[nutronjon]

Your question is akin to someone in an argument about the existence of unicorn's asking their opponent, "who said they were purple?"

 

Excuse me, I was asking for a clarification of "particular brand of deity" that was written in response to a post I made. I have not spoken of any particular brand of deity. There are things we can know, and God is not one of them.

[InfiniteNow]

There are things we can know, and God is not one of them.

 

And this is because there is no such thing... at least, not beyond the insecure human imagination.

[nutronjon]

more laws will make people more humane?

could man have evolved into something more than an animal?

 

 

inhuman=animal?

humans are animals that should not act like animals? :shrug:

 

there are two kinds of life on this planet, human and everything else.

 

i know that humans are not animals.

 

is it laws that make people humane or something else?

 

about the prison thing, well it's suposed to be punishment. unpleasent, harsh.

within reason of course.

 

Why is prison suppose to be punishment? What good do you expect to come from that?

 

What is your understanding of laws? What is your understanding of human nature?

[nutronjon]

"Arguing there is no Celestial Teapot, instead of the nature of Celestial Teapots, is a fools endeavor. Arguing there is no Celestial Teapot, gets us no closer to understanding the nature of the Celestial Teapot.

However, arguing the nature of the Celestial Teapot, reveals the self evident truths, upon which democracy depends. ":eek_big::shrug:

 

Democracy doesn't depend on your particular brand of deity, and it seems like an arrogant assumption on your part to suggest so.

Freedom and democracy are ideas stemming from our ability and willingness to be reasonable, which is in stark contradiction with belief in any sort of supernatural forces.

 

I'd like to recommend that all watch this video by Steven Pinker entitled "On Reason" form bigthink.com, in which he discusses secular enlightenment and the value of reason:

On Reason - Big Think

 

 

Here are two others on a related topic for those interested, "Where are we" ,discussing the obstacles to secular enlightenment:

Re: Where are we? - Big Think

And "How do you make sense of the unknown?" in which he discusses how making up stories to explain things we don't understand or do not know can only result in mischief, and may even be immoral: Re: How do you make sense of the unknown? - Big Think

 

Popular author and outspoken atheist Sam Harris also has a bigthink channel, for those interested:

Sam Harris - Big Think

 

The nature of God that we can study is not celestial but earthly and abstract such as math.

 

Cicero: Philosophy, Metaphysics of Cicero's 'Nature of the Gods'. Quotes Pictures Biography Cicero

 

Cicero realised the unity and interconnection of the universe, as he writes; God and the world of Nature must be one, and all the life of the world must be contained within the being of God. (Cicero)

The idea that 'All is One' is the foundation of philosophy and comes from the ancient Eastern and Greek Philosophers (~ 5th Century B.C.). Along with these ancient philosophers, Cicero also believed the universe was eternal. .. it is improbable that the material substance which is the origin of all things was created by divine Providence. It has and has always had a force and nature of its own. (Cicero)

 

Western Physics (with its particles and forces in 'Space Time' ) has never correctly understood the wisdom of ancient philosophy (All is One and Interconnected / Dynamic Unity of Reality). It is also important to understand that the ancient philosophers did not actually know how the universe was a dynamic unity, what matter was, how the One Thing caused and connected the many things.

Recent discoveries on the properties of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter (Wolff, Haselhurst) confirm that we can understand Reality, 'the true nature of the gods' and the interconnection of all things from a logical / scientific foundation. (As Cicero, Leo Tolstoy and Albert Einstein ask for, a rational explanation of religious faith.) We hope you enjoy the following biography and quotations of Cicero.....Cicero quotes:

 

 

 

From which it follows that as all the elements of the universe are sustained by heat, so the whole universe is itself preserved through all the ages by a similar power: the more so, because it must be understood that this hot and fiery principle is so infused throughout the whole of nature that it provides the life-force and is the source of all that comes to be, and from it is born and nourished every living creature and every plant whose roots are in the earth.

That which we call Nature is therefore the power which permeates and preserves the whole universe, and this power is not devoid of sense and reason. Every being which is not homogeneous and simple but complex and composite must have in it some organising principle. In man this organising principle is reason and in animals it is a power akin to reason, and from this arises all purpose and desire. (Cicero)

 

So we see that the parts of the world (for there is nothing in the world which is not a part of the universe as a whole) have sense and reason. So these must be present to a higher and greater degree in that part which provides the organising principle of the whole world. So the universe must be a rational being and the Nature which permeates and embraces all things must be endowed with reason in its highest form. And so God and the world of Nature must be one, and all the life of the world must be contained within the being of God. (Cicero)

 

Cicero was a Roman statemans and one of the most read men, by those who endeavored to manifest democracy. If you are not familar with Cicero and his importance to the democracy of the US, and the connection with ancient athens, perhaps you do not have the background necessary to understanding of what I say? It was Cicero's belief that laws not based on universal laws, were tyranny and not truly laws. He also believed as we all came to know truth, and based our laws on truth, we would all agree to the same laws, that is all countries we would share a conscensus on the best laws. Ideally democracy is rule by reason, but few are educated in the Greek and Roman classics, so they are not prepared to discuss this concept of God and democracy.

[InfiniteNow]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

 

~Epicurus

[Boerseun]

Nope. God does not exist. The concept of "God" is an ancient one, and a handy plug to fill a few holes in our minds that seemingly overlap, and can be answered by the same invention.

 

Consider:

 

Things happen, which makes other things happen. Us humans have neatly figured out causality, until we were confronted with something for which we had absolutely no explanation. Like lightning, say, a few hundred years ago. But something or another must surely be responsible for lightning. What can it be?

 

Our bodies are so complicated, that scientist still struggle till this day to figure out something so supposedly mundane as, say, the liver. Never mind the brain. How could the human body come to being? Something or someone very clever must have made it.

 

The stars.

 

Volcanoes, giving rise to the concept of a subterranean hell, have now been shown to be a relatively humdrum geologic occurence. Even Mars has 'em. Is there a hell on Mars? Is Olympus Mons the most pressing evidence to date for life on Mars, because there's a hell there?

 

And with religion having neatly hijacked the concept of Morality, the idea of God is not only presupposed, but justified in that if you're not religious, you must be immoral? Batshit.

 

A failure of causality due to an incomplete understanding of Nature leads to the independent invention of God. Societies all over the world have quite by themselves invented the idea. Which does not lend any creedence towards the concept of God, it's merely because we're all using the same brain which wants answers to very difficult questions, like, for instance, the origin of lightning.

 

God does not exist. Not here, not up there, not down there, not to the left, nor the right. God is a fabulous waste of time and a handy excuse as the cause for everyday things to those not willing to ante up and go to the effort of studying science. And as a supposedly omnipotent being who can by definition do everything, he simply doesn's seem to be able to print his own money. He wants yours, each and every Sunday. A superbeing who can't operate a printing press is no superbeing at all, sorry to say.

 

God exist only in the minds of millions upon millions of people who've all fallen for the same scam.

 

If the church was invented today, no country in the world would allow it to operate. And purely because it's such a blatant fraud to sell people a product which you only have to deliver after they've died. If the church started today, all its priests, nuns, mullahs, imams, gurus, name it, would be locked up as fraudsters and conmen.

 

But because of the massive weight that this meme has built up in the public mind over thousands of years, governments can't even get elected unless they support the church. Imagine for one moment, if you will, the possibility of a US presidential candidate openly saying he's an atheist, and still get elected to office. Its a scary world indeed if the most powerful nation on Earth is ruled by those who believe in purple dragons the most.

 

Also, we fear the dark. Most animals do. Other animals hide in holes till the sun comes up. Humans invent a fairy godfather to protect them in the dark. So, assigning faulty causes to techinical and unexplicable effects (like lightning, again) and our fear of the dark, is two holes in our brains that are filled with the same plug: God. And that lends it even more creedence.

 

But it's still wrong, because...

 

...drum roll...

 

... God doesn't exist.

 

We survive the dark, because we've tamed fire years ago, and can light up the dark.

Lightning is caused by electrical discharges in the atmosphere.

...and so on,

...and so forth.

 

But I only know the above, because I'd rather spend my time learning about the actual universe than to pay someone to tell me about an imaginary one.

[UncleAl]

Elric: "I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sounds - the sounds of billions of people calling your name."

 

Londo (eagerly): "My followers?"

 

Elric: "Your victims."